justitia, veritas, pax
by lineduae
Summary: In which Matt forcefully liberates a mutant weapon from her life-stasis tank and then deals with the consequences when Pax drops into his world. Luckily, Foggy, Karen, and Claire are around to help out as Matt grows into his Daredevil persona and Pax carves out a life for herself amongst friends. Maybe Hell's Kitchen is the perfect place to find some peace. Karen/Foggy, Matt/OC
1. Chapter 1: PAX-100-13

Welcome to my fic. I posted it first on AO3, but I wanted to share it with my first fanfiction community too. Things to know:

This fic is set post Daredevil season one and focuses on Matt Murdock, the gang, and an OC. For the universe I'm going with a mash-up of the first two X-Films, the MCU, and a bit of the comics sprinkled in for spice. I call it "MCU with mutants". Canon characters from other series or films do show up at times, like a certain blue shapeshifter. In my fic universe, Matt Murdock is probably a mutant.

The fic is ongoing, and the rating has hovered between T and M as far as violence and mature themes goes. There has been no sexual content yet, graphic or otherwise. Rating will change to reflect this eventually. The primary ships are Matt/Claire pining, some Foggy/Matt unrequited-romantic-feelings-and-pining, Foggy/Karen, Karen/Matt pining (on Karen's part), and Matt/OC. Some dark themes are explored, so general trigger warnings for trauma, medical abuse, death, self harm, being forced to commit violence, torture, PTSD, non-graphic mention of rape, and child sexual abuse.

Lastly, I have a companion collection of one-shots and short fics set in the _justitia, veritas, pax_ universe, which you can find on my profile.

If this sounds like your cup of tea, please read on. I hope you enjoy.

* * *

 **justitia, veritas, pax**

Chapter 1: PAX-100-13

* * *

There were times when things felt too easy, too neat, pieces falling into place the moment he touched them. Those times were usually traps, or indicative that he was two steps behind, or that he was about to end up in a dumpster. Or all three.

But sometimes things felt... significant. Fated. Like the universe and its laws and forces were conspiring to bring him to a certain place and time. Matt liked to think- liked to hope- that things could happen for a reason.

Whispers of a delivery had led him to rumours of a weapon. A weapon for Fisk. Priceless, dangerous, a secret thing that would bring Hell's Kitchen to its knees. A weapon that could bring down the Daredevil. The chase for information took time, time that ticked away as the Daredevil spent days shaking down, breaking bones, and pulling information from Fisk's men. A name here, a rendezvous point there, every word was hard won and wrung from unwilling mouths.

The last piece was a phone call Daredevil overheard as Matt Murdock, lawyer by day. He was exiting the justice building when something felt wrong, his senses converging to deliver a warning before Matt could pinpoint the danger.

There was a man nearby, talking low and fast on his cell-phone, with a loaded gun under his jacket, a taser on his belt, and a knife strapped to his leg. He smelled of recently fired gunpowder, nervous sweat, and bourbon. Matt followed as long as he could, learning much during the short call. The man was Fisk's head of security and he was settling the time and place for the delivery. A warehouse, just south of the docks, tonight. Fisk would be there himself to inspect the asset. Matt lost the man when he ducked into a car and drove off, but he had what he needed.

He backed out of after-work drinks with Karen and Foggy, making weak excuses and feeling Foggy's stare (knowing, worried, proud) follow him out the door. He would get there before Fisk, he decided. He would deal with the weapon. Destroy it, if he needed to. He had to. He couldn't let Fisk couldn't get his hands on it. He put on the Daredevil suit and got to work.

* * *

The place was practically unguarded. Not that there weren't guards around the warehouse, there were. They weren't undisciplined cronies either, not muscled and equipped with the latest in semi-automatics like that. But they kept back from the warehouse, like they had been told not to get too close, and compared to Matt their senses were as dull as ditchwater, so he slipped past them easily.

He waited outside for a moment, pressed into the shadows along the side of the building, his head cocked with concentration. His ears told him that the warehouse was devoid of any people, though there was some kind of machinery on and running. No alarms at the windows that he could tell, though the front door had a keypad and card reader for access.

The idea that he'd been misled, that the location had changed or that they knew he was coming (or, worst of all, that he'd just been wrong) made him grind his teeth. But he had to make sure.

He entered the building through a ground floor window. His boots thudded dully against the smooth concrete floor, the echoing around him confirming the vast size of the space, the emptiness. But it wasn't completely empty. Matt followed the slow hiss of oxygen, the faint rippling sounds of a great quantity of liquid, the electronic hum of computers. The whole place smelled like antiseptic, stainless steel, and the powder on the inside of latex gloves. He sensed sheets of plastic waving as he approached, put out his arm to push them aside and ducked under.

There was a long table loaded with a series of computers to his right. He passed a cart filled with medical supplies (hypodermic needles, syringes, scalpels, gauze, intubation tubes, sedatives in little glass vials.) To his left was a stainless steel table fitted with leather and steel restraints. He reached the object of his curiosity and cast out his radar, which bounced back a picture that confused him. It was a huge tank, over twelve feet tall and four feet in diameter, one perfect cylindrical wall of glass capped and ribbed by stainless steel. Wires, tubes, and a tangle of metal piping entered through the bottom.

But what was he listening to? There, inside? He pulled off his glove and pressed his hand against the glass of the tank, his bare palm resting there for only a millisecond before he ripped it away with a sharp intake of breath. That couldn't be right. But no, his senses didn't lie to him. He pressed his hand there again. The vibrations, the sound, the flickering current, the motion- all of it came together into one mind boggling picture. The thing in the tank- Fisk's weapon- was a person. The thick fluid in the tank and the hiccuping machine hum had hidden their heartbeat from him, but now that he had it...

A girl? A young woman. She hung suspended in the viscous liquid, sleeping, or something close to it. He could feel the slow, faint beat of her heart, hear the rasping noise of the half mask that covered from her chin to her nose and provided her oxygen. Her eyes moved rapidly underneath her closed eyelids.

Matt thought of the boy, so young and scared, the boy Stick had ended with an arrow through his heart. The boy Matt couldn't save.

He couldn't leave her here.

The thought hit him like a sack of bricks and his stomach dropped. This was crazy. He stepped away from the tank, turned away, ran his hand over the top of his head. He was crazy. But what else could he do? He pulled his glove back on as he wrestled with himself. Now that he knew the sound of it, his hearing picked up on the heartbeat underneath the noises of the life support system, clinging to it. The sound was a spot of light in the dimness of his indecision.

Before he could change his mind he spun and grabbed the first available heavy object, an old empty oxygen tank. It was thick walled metal, and he grunted as he hefted into his arms. He swung with all his strength against the tank. He heard glass crack at the point of impact and fractures spread outwards. He heard the heartbeat speed up, and the computer to his right began to beep in warning. He took a step back and swung from the waist to get inertia going, his biceps screaming and the veins on his neck straining from the effort. His second hit struck true and the glass shattered with a firecracker-loud, sparkling shower of sound and glass.

It was a kind of safety glass, designed to shatter into little rectangular pieces instead of pointed shards. He dropped the oxygen tank and jumped back when the glass shattered, the bitter, salty smelling liquid drenching his lower half. The wave of tank liquid and glass spread and pooled across the concrete floor. Matt stepped foreword, feeling for the situation. The entire glass cylinder had shattered, leaving the girl crumpled on the floor of the tank and tangled up in a great amount of wires, tubes, and IV lines. They didn't have much time.

Fingers fumbling in his haste, Matt tore bandages, ripped off electrodes, and pulled out IV lines. Through the material of his gloves he could feel that the girl's skin was wet and slippery, that she was cooler than she should be, and that she was naked. One problem at a time, Matt thought, as the girl woke with a start and began struggling weakly.

"It's alright! You're safe now. I'm trying to help."

The girl stopped fighting against him and began to claw at the mask covering her nose and mouth. Matt felt around the sides of her face, found the clips that secured the mask in place and undid them. He pulled the mask off and threw it to the side. When he turned back to the girl she was removing a long rubber tube from her throat, choking and gagging as she pulled. When the girl was free of the tube she slumped back into a half-lying position, and Matt could hear from the way her pulse skittered that she was weak. The scent of sedatives emanated from her pores, sickly sweet underneath the bitter smell of the tank fluid. She was losing consciousness.

"I'm going to take you somewhere safe," Matt said, casting his radar sense around the cavernous space. There, on the other side of what was left of the tank- a lab coat hanging over the back of a chair. He fetched it and brought it back.

"Put this on. Quickly." He said shortly. She didn't respond but obeyed, having just enough in her to slip the lab coat over her shoulders ( _Oh God she is so small,_ thought Matt) and button a few buttons before she passed out. Her head thumped against the floor of the tank.

Matt didn't blame her. He was already feeling pretty worn out himself. He bent with his knees, wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted. _This won't work,_ he berated himself, _this is crazy._ Her bare feet dragged uselessly on the ground. _Whoever is in charge of this operation could be back any minute._

Switching tactics, he shifted her in his arms, managed to get her legs up, and then he was holding her with one arm under of her legs and the other supporting her back. She was petite and lighter than Matt expected. Too light, it felt like, by the way her ribs pressed through her skin. But this he could work with. There was a rusting metal staircase at the back of the warehouse that led to the rooftop. If he was fast, and he didn't stop for anything, they might just make it.

* * *

Only with the heavenly blessing of the Holy Mother could Matt have made it home, through all those back alleys and over fire escapes and across rooftops, with an unconscious young woman in his arms and remain undetected by police and civilians alike. The sudden sheets of end-of-winter rain that began just after Matt stepped onto the warehouse roof and the late hour had likely helped, too. When he finally got his unconscious charge and himself into his apartment through the roof access he stopped for just a minute, panting. Rain water ran off of them to puddle on the stairs, and he sent up a prayer of thanks.

The girl in his arms stirred, her pulse beginning to grow stronger. The sound was a relief after the worryingly low heart rate she'd displayed on the way here. _Claire,_ Matt thought. I need _Claire_. Then he cringed, because how could he explain this? He could imagine what she would say and dreaded the conversation.

He walked across his living room and laid the girl across his sofa with the greatest care. Her hair fell across the pillow under her head in wet, tangled waves. In the warmth of his apartment her body temperature began to rise. He unfolded a microfiber throw blanket and draped it over the girl, listened as her breathing slowed and calmed. He cast his senses over her and found no injury, but she didn't feel right either. Had he hurt her as he pulled her out of that tank?

Matt sat back on his haunches and pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead as relief flooded him. Then, in equal measure, dawning realization and horror. What was he going to do now? He had kidnapped a woman. Well, it was more of a forceful liberation. But when she woke up would she see it that way? And people- whoever put her in the tank for sure, and Fisk's people certainly- would be looking for her. He was so stupid.

He sighed at himself, a short angry sound, pushed up off the floor, reached into his pocket for the burner phone. He pulled off his mask with one hand and tossed it onto the armchair. Then he dialled the number that was second nature to him now and held the phone to his ear.

"Claire. I... I need your help."

* * *

"Oh my God, Matt!" Claire said, just a little too loudly. Then, with a glance at the sleeping person on his sofa, Claire repeated herself in a hushed voice, "Oh my God. This has to be the stupidest, most reckless thing you've ever done."

"I know, I know," Matt said, running his hand through his hair, "But I couldn't just leave her there."

Claire leaned against the island counter in the kitchen and folded her arms across her chest. She looked into the living room.

"You weren't there," Matt continued, "They had her in this... tank. She had all these tubes and wires attached to her. She's been sedated for who knows how long. They were about to sell her to Fisk."

"Okay, I understand," Claire assented, "But think about what you're saying. You found Fisk's big secret weapon that you've been looking for, and then you brought it home. _She is the weapon._ I mean, what does that even mean? What does that mean for you? You don't know anything about this person. I have a bad feeling about this. I think she's dangerous."

"If I recall, you brought me, a masked stranger, into your apartment." Matt reminded the nurse.

A hint of a smile quirked her beautiful mouth.

"A mistake I continue to regret." She sighed and looked from Matt to the sleeping stranger and then back again. Matt crossed his arms and turned his face to Claire.

"I can't promise this won't end badly. With my luck, it will all go sideways. And you're right, this is dangerous. So if you want to stay out of it, I understand. But I could use your help on this."

"It's what I do." Claire deadpanned, scooping her nursing kit off of the counter. Matt gave her a relieved smile and followed her assured footsteps into the living room. Matt stood nearby, close enough to have a good listen to the following examination but far enough that he wasn't breathing down Claire's neck as she worked.

Claire pulled on a pair of blue examination gloves, snapping the elastic at the wrist as she leaned in close. She inspected the sleeping stranger closely.

"Wow, she's really out of it, huh?" Claire said, pressing two fingers against the girl's neck and feeling for a pulse. "Pulse is strong. That's good." Claire pulled her pen light out of her bag and leaned over her patient. It was then that the girl from the tank woke up.

Matt didn't know what it was, but the moment the girl's eyes snapped open, something happened. It wasn't a sound, or a smell or a taste, or a feeling. I wasn't even motion or a ping off of Matt's radar sense. It was something entirely new, and it happened so suddenly that Matt couldn't reach Claire in time. There was a pulse, a wave of energy emanating from the young woman at the centre, and then Claire was flying backwards.

Claire slid across the floor and hit the wall behind her with enough force to wind her. Matt took less of the wave, stumbling backwards but not going down. The attack lingered in his radar like an afterimage and disoriented him. Matt cocked his head as he searched for the sound of Claire's breathing or the smell of her blood.

"Claire?" Matt called out to her. Claire took a deep breath and pressed her hand against the back of her head. The afterimage began to fade for Matt, bringing things back into focus.

"I'm okay, but what the hell was that?" Claire asked.

At the same time the two of them turned their attention to the girl. She was sitting up on the sofa, her breathing rapid and shallow, her face hidden in her hands as her heart pounded wildly. She was whispering something over and over again under her breath, _Is this real? Is this real? Is this real?_

"She's scared," Matt said to Claire. "You're okay," he said, directed at the girl this time. "You're going to be okay. I, uh, rescued you." He raised his hands in a gesture of trustworthiness and took a slow step foreword. "My friend was just checking to see if you're alright. She's a nurse."

The girl forced her breathing to slow and raised her face from her hands. She looked at Matt, and he smelled her fear underneath the lingering wisps of sedative, though her system was processing it faster than Matt expected.

"You were wearing a mask before," The girl said quietly. Her voice was scratchy with disuse and carefully controlled. It was hard for Matt to pin down her age. Eighteen? Twenty-five?

"Uh, yes. I do that."

The girl's frown relaxed as she looked from Matt to Claire and then around the room. Claire stood slowly with help from the wall and stared openly at the stranger on Matt's sofa, bitter fear radiating off of Claire like waves.

"This is your home?" The young woman asked Matt.

"Yes. I didn't- I didn't know where else to take you."

"How did you do that?" Claire interjected. "You pushed me."

Matt heard the girl's heart skip a beat and felt the blood drain out of her face, but when she spoke, it was with the same quiet, cool tone.

"I did not know where I was. I was afraid." A pause. "I am sorry." The girl said, somewhat awkward in her apology, but also sincere, her heartbeat steady.

"But how? How did you do that?"

The girl quirked her head at Claire, whose posture was defensive, protective of the space between them.

"I am a mutant." The girl said simply. "I am telekinetic. I am sorry that I pushed you. I didn't mean to."

Behind him Claire stiffened, and Matt felt a prick of offence at her fear. Though, to be fair, the girl had just sent her sliding across the room.

"Telekinesis. That's moving things with your mind?" Matt asked incredulously.

"This from the guy who can see without eyes," Claire grumbled.

"I have eyes," Matt corrected her. He turned back to the girl.

"Yes, that's right." The young woman said. She was looking down at the throw blanket across her lap and stroking the soft fabric, again and again. It was then that Matt realized he needed something better to call her than 'the young woman'.

"Who are you?" He asked, stepping foreword, and though her heart began to beat faster, she didn't bolt and there were no more telekinetics as he closed the space between them. He took a seat on the far end of the sofa. Her hands stroked the blanket.

"It's okay. I'm not with the people who did this to you. I'm not with the police. I'm just trying to help. What's your name?"

"I don't know. They made me forget it."

The confession was so quiet that someone with normal hearing would have missed it. Matt felt the need to hit someone creep up his back and settle into the muscles of his shoulders.

"You don't-" he started, and but the young woman cut him off.

"I remember some things. I know many things. But I don't remember my name. It smells like early spring outside. What month is it?" She asked calmly, like this was all normal. And maybe it was, for her. But Matt raging inside, ready to tear someone limb from limb.

"It's the end of February." Matt answered. The girl nodded thoughtfully.

"That means I'm twenty-three now."

A muscle in Matt's jaw clenched as he fought the instinct to go back to that warehouse, find whoever was responsible for this, and make them sorry. Claire crossed the room towards the girl, cautious but no longer afraid. When the nurse spoke again, understanding had softened her voice and relaxed her posture.

"You don't know who you are? Is anyone looking for you?"

"I know that I have no family. I don't remember my name." The girl said simply, but Matt could hear the restrained emotion in her voice like an undercurrent. Then she offered, "My identification number was PAX-100-13. Sometimes the technicians called me Pax, or Number 13."

"Pax," Claire murmured. "It'll do for now. I'm Claire."

"And I'm-" Matt started, but the words got caught in his throat. Secrecy was his lifeblood. Lies had become second nature. It was silly. Pax had seen his face, she was in his apartment for God's sake- but he hesitated. "I'm Matthew. Matt."

"Claire. Matthew." Pax said. She reached out a hand and touched Claire's nursing bag, still resting on the floor beside the sofa. She looked at Claire's latex-gloved hands. "You wish to examine me?"

The thought frightened her, Matt realized. No wonder. But she kept her posture tight, stilling her hands against the blanket, her face smooth and free of emotion. She played her cards close to her chest. Matt understood that.

"If it's okay with you," Claire affirmed. "I hear you had a big night. I just want to make sure that when Matt pulled your plug he didn't do any damage." She said lightly. She was good at putting people at ease.

"I consent." Pax said.

Matthew left the living room to give Pax privacy and Claire got to work, taking her vitals, testing her blood sugar, and testing Pax's neurological condition ("Name three animals that start with the letter B".) After that Claire kneeled in front of Pax and set to checking for injuries.

Claire's hands were firm but gentle, skimming confidently across Pax's shoulders, her arms, her legs. Claire mentally catalogued each bruise from the IV lines and noted her low weight. As Claire examined her Pax stared at the wall and kept perfectly still, and the look in her eyes told Claire that she was somewhere else. Most disturbing of all of it, though, were the scars.

They were everywhere, but not obvious at first glance. Each scar was silvery and perfectly healed, obviously the result of expert incisions, visible only when the light from the nearby lamp hit them just so. But it was the quantity that turned Claire's stomach. There were hundreds. They were scattered all over, most of them on her back clustered along her spine, across the back of her neck, and into her hairline. The other areas of highest concentration were the inside of her elbows, her inner forearms, and the inside of her knees. They ranged from less than an inch long to many inches long and half an inch wide.

But all those scars were healed wounds, the most recent scars at least six months old. Unable to find any new injuries, save for a few little cuts on Pax's feet and palms, Claire cleaned those up and pronounced Pax as healthy as could be expected.

"Your blood sugar is low, though. You should drink this." Claire reached into her nursing bag and pulled out a juice box. She handed it to Pax, who was coming back to reality. Pax took the straw and inspected it curiously. "I also brought you some clothes. They're in the paper bag on the table. It's just a pair of sweatpants of mine, and a t-shirt. They're going to be big on you but hey, better than naked, right?"

Claire sat back on her heels and pulled off her gloves. Pax managed to get the straw into the juice box and was sipping the drink slowly. Claire realized she had been watching Pax for a few seconds longer than is usually considered acceptable and gave Pax a half smile. Pax gave her a small smile back.

"Thank you, Claire. I'm sorry again about the..." Pax gestured toward's Claire's head shyly.

Claire waved a hand.

"Don't worry about it. Yeah, I have a bump on my head, but I'll be okay. I'm an ER nurse, and I've been through worse thanks to my moonlighting gig here." She stood up and stretched, pushing her hands into her lower back. "But I have a work shift early, so I better get going."

Matt appeared at the doorway to his bedroom, out of his Daredevil suit and wearing a pair of black sweatpants and a black long sleeved shirt. He walked Claire out of his apartment, thanking her again for her help, his thanks sounding over-used and shallow in his ears. Claire, as always, was gracious in her own way.

"Are you sure you can't stay? Just overnight?" Matt asked, leaning against the doorframe as Claire pulled on her jacket.

"Oh no," Claire said, not unkindly, "You got yourself into this. And I'm sure you can handle one woman on your sofa. I mean, it's not as if it hasn't happened before." A pause, and then quietly and more serious, "Really Matt, what are you going to do with her?"

"I'm not going to do anything with her," Matt said quickly, realizing how defensive he sounded but unable to help himself, "She's not a thing, she's a person."

"Of course," Claire soothed him, "But, I mean, by rescuing her you created a problem. How are you going to be able to keep her safe, save by keeping her locked in your place all day?"

"I just wanted to... I couldn't leave her there." Matt said softly, sadly, and Claire saw the weight resting on his shoulders, heavier now for this new responsibility.

"I know. I think you did the right thing. And we'll figure something out." Claire looked over at Pax, who had gotten up from the sofa and who was looking out Matt's living room windows. The young woman's face was turned upward and her wild, tangled hair illuminated by the neon light. "I'll call you tomorrow."

"Yeah. Thanks." Matt said. "Goodnight."

He closed the door behind Claire and spent a moment leaning against the cool wood, listening to her footsteps go down the hall, down the stairs, out onto the street below.

* * *

"You can take my bedroom," Matt said to Pax. He was remembering the time that Karen stayed over, how he could barely keep her safe, and the time when Claire stayed at his place to hide out from the Russians, after he put her life in danger. He wondered if he would ever be able to keep anyone safe. "The light doesn't bother me."

Pax, who was sitting at Matt's kitchen table inspecting the clothes that Claire left, looked up at Matt and shook her head no.

"Well, if you prefer the sofa-"

"I do not think I will be sleeping very much tonight. I have been sleeping for a long time."

"Ah," Matt said, feeling inadequate.

"You're blind." Pax switched the topic as suddenly and naturally as drawing her next breath. Her head tilted to the side as she awaited his answer, the paper bag of clothing crinkling in her hands.

"Yes," Matt said.

"But you know when I nod. You can hear things. You can sense things."

"Yes."

"Then you are like me." Pax unfolded the t-shirt to look at the screen print on the front and Matt heard the soft press of her lips when she smiled in approval.

Matt didn't know what to say to that. He had wondered about that, but he didn't know if mutants developed their powers like he did. And he definitely couldn't move objects with his thoughts or read minds or walk through walls. He sat down at the table, resting his arms on the tabletop.

"I knew someone with senses like yours once. Not quite as good with the hearing, I think, but he could tell how many guns were holed up in a hotel room on the fifth floor from the lobby by smell alone." Pax continued. Then, suddenly, she was reaching out. Her fingers ghosted across the sleeve of his shirt.

"Thank you. For taking me away from them."

Matt's insides twisted. "Who are they?"

"I don't know. They call themselves the Miracle Workers. Mostly scientists. They were careful not to mention anything critical around us. There is a man and a woman in charge. The scientists called them the Donnelley's. They have been receiving funding for the project from someone named Fisk, on the condition that he had buying rights to the first completed..."

At the mention of Fisk's name Matt clenched his fists, and now the word hung in the air between them, echoing unsaid. Weapon.

"It was supposed to be me." Pax finished. "It was my skills, my abilities, that caught Fisk's eye. But I had my neural control units removed before I went back into the life support tank. They were damaged in my last mission, in 2014, and they needed to be programmed for my new handler's needs. It's hard to remember what I heard when I was... asleep... But I think I was scheduled for re-implantation tonight or tomorrow."

"Are there others?" Matt asked.

"Yes. Not many survive the process, and most of us were sold early, or sold to other programs. But there were two others left from the PRISM program. They were called Nyx and Vox, although it was against regulation to name us. They did not leave the base. Only I came to New York, to be delivered to Fisk. I do not know where the others are."

"How old were you when they... When you..." Matt floundered, immediately regretting the question. Too personal. Too invasive. Too like the questions people peppered him with questions about his blindness. But Pax didn't sound offended when she answered, only sad.

"I was nine when they took me from my foster parents. The Miracle Workers treated me well until my mutation manifested. Until then there were no surgeries, there was no training, no missions. I was educated by tutors, and I could play outside and even watch movies sometimes. I was thirteen when my powers activated."

"I was nine when I was blinded." Matt offered gently, recognizing the gift of Pax's honesty, her story. "Things didn't start getting really loud until after my dad died, though."

And this young woman, who had been taken as a child, who had been hurt and operated on and trained to do God only knows what, reached out her hand to rest her hand on his arm. With a sincerity that Matt could taste she said,

"I'm sorry."

Matt blinked, his cheeks warm with embarrassment at the way his eyes watered. "Well, it was a long time ago." He said, flustered. Pax nodded her head once and lifted her hand off of his arm to rest it on the table. Matt found himself missing the gentle pressure as soon as he lost it.

Pax went to the washroom and changed out of the lab coat and into the borrowed clothes, a pair of worn-to-softness sweatpants that hung low on Pax's hips and smelled like Claire's apartment, and a new cotton t-shirt with a local tattoo shop's logo on the front. Pax returned to the table and they sat talking together for a long time. Well, mostly Matt talked- about Foggy and Karen, about his work as the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, about his life as an attorney, about the law and justice. He even talked about his dad, a little. Pax was a good listener.

As the conversation gave way to a comfortable silence Pax's breathing grew slower and steadier until, despite what she had said, she eventually fell asleep at the table.

* * *

And so we begin! Since I've set this post season-one, I am working on the assumption that Fisk is out of prison and under house arrest to wait for trial. Because that would totally be effective and is definitely a sound legal decision.

Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2: fight or flight

Chapter 2: fight or flight

* * *

Pax woke the next morning to the smell of toasting bread and grey light filtering through the frosted window next to the bed. Matthew's bed, Pax thought, running her hand along the silk sheet in consideration. She looked around the room, taking in the talking alarm clock, the braille books on the nightstand, the way everything had a place, the distinct lack of clutter. When she stood up dizziness washed over her. She was weak and hungry. Her skin felt grimy and her hair was an even wilder mess than it had been before she slept on it. She needed a shower.

From the kitchen Matt's energy radiated, all focus and self-control. Beneath that there was an undercurrent of emotion that ran deep- responsibility, fondness, worry, guilt, frustration, and a still pool of peace at the heart. Pax wondered about that peace. It reminded her of when Nyx would meditate, a phantom circle of prayer beads in their hand, the memory of the quartz between their fingers and the brush of an orange tassel against their wrist. Those times were as close as Nyx ever got to relief.

Then, realizing what she was doing, Pax withdrew her empathic feelers, pangs of guilt resonating in her chest.

Matt was in the kitchen, already showered and dressed and wearing his glasses as he fixed a quick breakfast. He was thinking of the way Pax's ribs pressed against her skin as he put two more pieces of bread in the toaster.

When Matt was pouring orange juice into two glasses he detected motion from his bedroom. Focusing his abilities there, he listened for Pax's heartbeat, sensed her cautious movements as she got out of bed. As she exited the bedroom and crossed the living room Matt noted by the clean scent of her sweat that the drugs were almost completely out of her system. He walked around the counter to place both glasses of juice on the kitchen table, next to a sizeable stack of toast and the bowl of fruit.

"Good morning," Matt said, to which Pax nodded.

"Thank you for the use of your bed." Pax said. Matt fought his body's natural reaction to fluster at the memory of carrying Pax to his bed, a fight not made any easier by the way his smell still clung to her skin.

 _Come on,_ Matt scolded himself as Pax took a seat at the table, _you've had women in your bed before. Keep it together._

"No problem," Matt replied smoothly. He took a seat opposite the young woman and gestured to the food. Pax reached for the fruit bowl, but hesitated, and Matt heard the way he stomach growled in hunger, but also the way her heart rate sped.

"May I... eat?" Pax asked. She sounded embarrassed with herself but her hand trembled with the effort of keeping from touching the food. Matt remembered the precise, automatic way that she had consented to Claire's examination the night before. He felt her self-control and hated whoever had carved this need to comply so deeply within her. His hand made a fist underneath the table, but outwardly he smiled in what he hoped was a warm and encouraging way.

"You can always eat whatever you want here. And you don't have to ask permission again."

Pax grabbed the apple and devoured it happily, and then proceeded to go through three pieces of toast drizzled with honey.

"Sweet tooth," Matt teased, and Pax smiled into her toast.

When Matt had just finished his toast and drained his glass there was a knock at the door. The moment she heard it Pax dropped the crust of her toast onto her plate, leapt up from the table, and flew across the apartment and into Matt's bedroom. Matt stood up from the table and called out,

"Pax, I'm sorry. I should have warned you that someone was coming. It's just Foggy. I told you about him last night. We can trust him."

At the sound of the window in his bedroom creaking open Matt took a few quick steps towards Pax, visions of her hitting the concrete below filling his thoughts. But then, after a moment of still consideration, Matt heard the window close. His shoulders sagged with relief and he turned back to the door.

"Matt? Matt?" Foggy called through the door, sounding impatient and more than a little worried. Matt unlocked the door and swung it open. His friend's familiar Head & Shoulders, pine-y deodorant, chocolate-croissant-breakfast smell filled his nose.

"Ah, good. I was hoping you hadn't been murdered by a tiny mutant assassin." Foggy joked.

 _"Foggy,"_ Matt hissed, "Don't say things like that."

"Okay, that's cool. Just trying to inject some levity into a very weird situation, but I can be sensitive to the needs of others." Foggy moved into the apartment, kicking the door shut behind him. He dropped a heavy shopping bag onto the sofa and looked around.

"So, uh, where is she?"

"Pax?" Matt called out softly. He felt her listening at the door of his bedroom. "This is my best friend, Foggy Nelson."

Pax appeared at the doorway to his bedroom, her cheeks warm with a faint blush. From the way Foggy's face went hot and his pulse jumped Matt wondered if maybe Pax was naked again, or dripping with blood, but no- his senses told him she was still clothed and uninjured. She must be very pretty, then.

"Um, wow. Hi. So you're really... You really exist. Huh." Foggy started an awkward wave, then changed his mind and shoved his hands in his pants pockets.

"Hello." Pax said softly. Foggy turned to Matt, his next words sounding incredulous.

"You found her in a test tube? Dammit, Matt. How do you keep doing this?"

Matt flicked his focus to Pax, expecting her to take offence, but the soft lines of her mouth formed a smile instead. She was a test tube girl with a strange sense of humour.

"It was a life-stasis tank," Pax said.

"And you're so nice! And small. I've never met such a nice, small, super-powered mutant before." Foggy blurted out.

Matt groaned and rolled his eyes behind his glasses.

"Oh wait, is 'mutant' not the thing to say? I want to be PC. Person with mutantism?"

Matt was about to hit Foggy over the head with whatever heavy object was closest at hand.

"Mutant is fine." Pax said patiently.

Foggy grinned and looked from Matt to Pax and then back again.

"Well this is cool. Oh, I brought that stuff you wanted! I have to say Matt, this was the weirdest shopping expedition that I've ever undertaken. You should have seen the looks I've been getting." Foggy jabbed a thumb in the direction of the plastic shopping bag on the sofa.

Pax down and took the bag in her hands, the plastic crinkly gently as she peered inside.

"It's some clothes and things for you. Just pick out what will fit you and we can return the rest," Matt explained.

Pax held up a cardboard box that smelled strongly of ammonia and vegetable dye in one hand, and a pair of thick-rimmed fashion glasses in the other. She quirked her head in Matt's direction.

"Now she's looking at you funny. Possibly wondering if you have some sort of very specific fetish-" Foggy narrated, until Matt cut him off.

"Foggy," warned Matt.

"Sorry," Foggy chuckled nervously.

Pax set the hair dye and glasses down beside her and set to pulling out fruity-smelling toiletries, a bunch of clothing, and many more pairs of fashion eyeglasses.

Foggy stepped back to let Pax check stuff out. To Matt he whispered exaggeratedly,

"Matt, you know how I get around women that I could just scoop up and carry. Short women are my only weakness. My fatal flaw. My mouth just runs away with me."

"Your only weakness?" Matt teased his friend. The planes of Foggy's face settled into what Matt had learned was Foggy's "come on, man" expression.

"You know, you're right. I love tall women too. I guess I just love women." Foggy grinned widely, thinking of Karen. Matt shook his head fondly.

And then, unbidden, Matt's senses converged with a laser-like focus on Pax. He sensed the way her muscles shifted under her skin, weakened from her time in stasis but clearly the result of many years of physical training. He thought of the scars his fingers had brushed over as he carried her home, dozens of them under his touch, likely many more where he hadn't felt. He thought of the way she had sent Claire across the room and nearly knocked Matt down without lifting a finger.

"You might not want to try to scoop up that one," Matt warned quietly, his tone light but his words heavy with sincerity.

Foggy ignored him.

"I have to say, good call on the hair dye, Matt. That is a pretty distinctive hair colour. You're probably going to want to hide that particular identifying feature," He said to Pax.

Pax raised a hand to her hair self-consciously. Matt cocked his head.

"Why, what colour is it?" Matt asked.

"Red," Pax answered at the same time that Foggy said,

"Bright red. Like a sunset, or something really red and beautiful."

Matt had to chuckle at Foggy's way with words. Pax, embarrassed by the attention, inspected a package of new toothbrushes. Foggy did that thing where he kicks himself inside and pushed his hair back from his face.

Matt found himself imagining what he remembered of sunsets, of that hazy red glow- not the colour of blood or fire or pain. Just warmth, and light.

* * *

Pax disappeared into the bathroom with an armful of clothes and toiletries, leaving Matt and Foggy in the living room. The friends talked together quietly. After a moment he bathroom door opened and she popped out holding an open bottle of body wash in each hand. The scent of them was a pungent haze even from ten feet away.

"Which one?" Pax asked Matt.

Not many people considered Matt's sensitive nose, so that she had thought of it made him smile to himself. He wondered if she did this for her friend, the one who could smell five guns holed up in a hotel room. Inhaling, he determined right away that the first was too floral, too perfumey. The second was much better, like peaches and nectarines. He pointed to that one.

"Thanks," Pax said, disappearing again.

"I like her." Foggy said appreciatively, though he automatically liked anyone who took care of Matt (that being a personal priority of Foggy's.)

"She's something," Matt said vaguely.

Matt and Foggy talked work, finding clients, casual stuff, until they heard the shower head turn on. At the sound of the running water Foggy dropped pretenses and jumped into interrogation mode. He leaned foreword in his chair and demanded details of the impromptu rescue the night before, Pax's powers, who Matt thought was behind it all. Foggy listened, rapt, as Matt's retold the past night's event. Matt deliberately did not think about Pax in his shower, focusing on Foggy to block out the sound of water droplets hitting skin.

* * *

Most of the clothing Foggy brought fit her. Pax suspected Matt's exceptional senses had a hand in that. How else would he have known her shoe size? Pax decided that she would pay Matt and Foggy back for everything as soon as she could. From the shopping bag that Foggy had provided at Matt's request Pax chose:

One package of eight ultra-soft bikini-style cotton panties;

two sports bras, one white and one black;

one package of six white socks;

one short sleeved t-shirt in grey;

one long sleeved t-shirt in black;

one pair of dark wash jeans;

one light sweater made of the softest silvery grey wool;

one pair of black and grey sneakers;

and one pair of non-prescription eyeglasses with thick black, slightly cat-eyed frames.

After careful deliberation Pax chose the white sports bra, a pair of white panties, a pair of socks, the jeans (which fit well in the waist but had to be rolled at the cuff), the short-sleeved t-shirt, and the grey sweater. She set her planned outfit aside, picked up the pair of scissors she had borrowed, and looked into the bathroom mirror. A young woman, too thin and too pale, with a mess of wavy red hair tangled around her shoulders and grey eyes stared back at her. Her face was drawn, her nose was straight, her lips were full and a little chapped. She looked scared. She looked small. She looked free.

Pax leaned over he sink and began to cut her hair. She used to cut Nyx's hair like this, when they were children, before their powers had manifested and she wasn't allowed access to sharp objects anymore. Her hands remembered how to do it and the job went quickly.

Coppery bright strands fell around her bare shoulders. When she finished she rubbed her scalp vigorously, feeling the newly-short hair ruffle silkily underneath her fingers. Then she applied the hair dye and got into the shower, washing her body as the dye set.

She washed herself throughly with the the peach-nectarine body wash and some of Matt's unscented two-in-one shampoo and conditioner to get the chemical smell out of her hair. After she was clean Pax stayed under the hot water for just a minute, resting her head against the cool tile of the shower wall. In the living room Matt was getting flustered and annoyed, and Foggy was brainstorming. Her empathy told her that there was a tinge of anxiety to the conversation; they were trying to figure out what to do with her. Pax wished she knew herself.

Her stomach twisted when she thought of the danger she was putting her new handlers in. No, not handlers, she jumped to correct herself as she shut off the water. Allies. Friends?

Pax wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror and looked at herself again. She saw how the pixie cut emphasized her cheekbones, how the glossy-black colour brought out the grey of her eyes and her long, black lashes. She turned her head to the left and right. Without the curtain of her hair the scars that ran up the back and sides of her neck were visible, but she liked how she looked.

Pax got dressed and packed up her new toiletries. She put on her new glasses. Looking in the mirror, at a young woman with short dark hair and glasses, wearing an outfit she had chosen for herself, she almost didn't recognize herself, and she loved it.

* * *

"Okay, so what is the plan here? Where are you going to stay?" Foggy asked Pax.

Pax ran her hand through her hair. She couldn't stop touching it.

"I don't know. I guess a shelter for now."

"Like... a homeless shelter? What? Oh, no way." Foggy turned to Matt and gestured emphatically. "You're not going to let this fly? Of all our options, kicking her out to wander the streets is, like, the worst."

"Foggy, relax. No one is getting kicked onto the streets. But he is right, you do need somewhere to stay," Matt said, turning to Pax. "Well, you'll need more than that, but we'll start simple. Until I can find out what the Miracle Workers know, if they are looking for you and where, we need to be careful. I think you should stay with Foggy. Just for a few days. His building is more secure than mine."

Pax looked to Foggy, who was turning red and cycling through all kinds of emotions. The gears in his brain turned rapidly as Pax watched and Matt listened.

"I don't know, Matt. How am I supposed to explain who she is? Someone is definitely going to notice a girl coming in and out of my place. It's not exactly a common occurrence." Foggy said wryly.

"Foggy. Everyone knows that I don't have any family, but you have dozens of cousins," Matt cajoled.

"There's only twelve of us. That's one dozen. A singular dozen." Foggy held up one finger and waved it around.

"The point stands, but I think that this is our best option- hiding in plain sight. I think we should say that Pax is your cousin. This gives her an identity and a story, and allows us a reason to keep her close." Matt nodded towards Pax. "What do you think, Pax?"

"I consent. I mean, I agree. I would like to be Foggy's cousin." Pax said, cautiously optimistic. To Matt's right Foggy was radiating dismay and delight in equal parts.

Pax turned her face to Matt and said, "But I think it'd be even more strategically advantageous for me to alternate staying at Foggy's apartment and yours. I stayed here last night, so I can stay at Foggy's tonight."

Pax looked to Foggy, who threw his hands up.

"Yeah, what the hell. Why not? Welcome, cousin!" Foggy threw open his arms in one of his typical overzealous gestures. What he didn't expect, and what resulted in a happy sound of surprise, is that Pax would stand and wrap her arms around Foggy in the most brief and cautious of hugs.

"Thank you," Pax said quietly as she pulled away. Matt noted that, from the way Foggy's blood rushed and he swallowed, Foggy may not have expected the hug, but he sure liked it.

* * *

The sun was coming out from behind the cloud cover as Matt, Foggy, and Pax left Matt's apartment for the office. Foggy and Pax led the way while Matt followed just behind, the tip of his can sweeping in front of his feet with the unerring precision of a quality timepiece.

Foggy was jumpy, nervous about being out with Pax, surrounded by all these people, any of which could be a potential threat. Matt knew the feeling. He kept focus and maintained the bubble of awareness around them as the travelled, rapidly filtering every sound, smell, change in temperature, and flutter of movement for danger.

Foggy was happy, too, though. He talked with Pax easily, pointing out the best place to get a sandwich and the stretch of sidewalk where Foggy had once stopped a purse snatcher as they passed. He talked easily with anyone, really. Foggy was happiest with people, Matt thought. He found joy in being a friend, in making friends, in brightening people's lives. Matt knew that he didn't deserve someone like Foggy, but he was grateful anyway.

Pax reached out to touch the brass sign on the front of the building as they went inside. Matt smiled to himself at the way her fingers skimmed over the raised letters, at the way she was constantly reaching out and touching things. She was very tactile.

As they climbed the stairs Foggy chatted away about the building and told the story of how Matt had the pretty realtor take his arm and lead him around the office that day. As Foggy pronounced Matt's ladykiller status Pax shot Matt a glance, which he caught, though being unable to pick out the details he wasn't sure how to decipher it. When they reached the office Foggy pushed open the door and grandly welcomed Pax to their distinguished and quality establishment.

Matt could feel that the air in the office was warming with the pale sunlight streaming in the windows. Karen was already at her desk, smelling like her gardenia-and-strawberry perfume and the soy milk latte she had for breakfast.

"'Morning Karen," Foggy said brightly. Karen stood, looking from Pax to Matt to Foggy.

"Good morning. Client?" She asked of Foggy and Matt, to which Foggy cleared his throat.

"Oh no, uh, this is my cousin. She just got to the city last night. She's going to hang around today."

To Pax he said, "Karen is our awesome and super competent administrator-secretary-BFF. She keeps everything running smoothly around here. We would be lost without her."

"Oh, hi! I've heard about Foggy's impressive collection of cousins. It's nice to meet one of you." Karen approached and held out her hand.

Pax stiffened, which made Matt's grip on his cane tighten, but she didn't run or fight. She just took a shaky breath and shook Karen's hand. There was a touch of shyness in her movements, and she returned Karen's smile. Matt relaxed, the tension diffused, and walked into his office to set down his briefcase and fold up his cane.

"So, uh, does your cousin have a name?" Karen teased Foggy.

Foggy immediately flustered. "It's, uh, Pax. Well, that's a nickname." He added at Karen's confused expression. "We call her Pax. Her real name is-"

Through the wall of his office Matt heard Pax hold her breath.

"Penelope." Foggy finished, sounding pleased with himself and his quick thinking. Matt was pretty sure that it was the first name that Foggy could think of that started with 'P'. Pax exhaled gently at Foggy's choice of name. In relief? Did she like it? Matt wondered what she was thinking. She was harder to get a read on than most.

Karen smiled one of her genuine Karen smiles. "Penelope. Pretty! I think I'll go with that. It's going to be nice to have another girl around the office. Want some coffee?"

From behind Karen Foggy made wild gestures of warning, but Pax, unaware of the danger, agreed to a cup.

* * *

As the day wore on, Matt couldn't help but observe something unusual about Pax.

Well, what was usual about her? Matt had never met anyone like her, never known anyone who had gone through the things she had. Considering what Matt knew of her situation, Pax was actually doing pretty damn well. Her motions were always careful, controlled, as if to conserve energy, but he sensed through the tightness of her muscles that she was ready to strike out at any moment. She walked with the cautious grace of someone who had no other choice than to learn to be silent, but she was ready to run if she needed to.

She jumped at any sudden sound or any noise that broke the pattern. She sometimes slipped up and answered with "affirmative" or "I consent" when asked a question. Her speech was often reserved, bordering formal, and the back-and-forth of small talk seemed foreign to her. She blushed or became quietly puzzled with Karen's offerings of friendship, with Foggy's compliments, with any little kindnesses.

But yesterday she was a weapon, unconscious in a tank, about to be the possession of a criminal mastermind, and today she was here. Today she walked, and talked, and smiled. She discussed favourite novels with Karen over lunch. She even laughed once, when Foggy told the singing statue story. The sound broke through Matt's brooding thoughts of Fisk and the Miracle Workers like the sun breaking through the clouds, bright and lovely.

But none of that was the unusual thing.

It was the way that Matt could feel Pax lift her head or turn when someone addressed her, but too soon, before they had actually said her name or started speaking, just a split second earlier than she should. It was the way Pax had found the word on the tip of Karen's tongue ("Transference?" "Yes! How did you guess that?") and reminded Foggy what had come into the room for, when he had never actually said what he was looking for in the first place. Pax could sense things, Matt decided, things even he couldn't.

The others didn't seem to notice, but then, they couldn't see what Matt could.

After lunch, when Foggy was in the washroom and Karen was taking a bunch of paper recycling to the bin down the hall, Matt stood up from his desk and stepped quietly into the main part of the office. Pax was standing at the window behind Karen's desk, looking out onto Hell's Kitchen. Her heartbeat was the steadiest and slowest it had been all day. She was starting to feel safer.

 _Pax,_ thought Matt.

"Yes?" Pax asked as she turned to look at him.

Silhouetted by the warmth of the light, it only took one beat of her heart for her to realize the mistake she had just made.

The silence hung between them, pregnant with mutual realization. Matt felt the muscles in her legs tense, heard her sharp intake of breath, sensed the curl of her fingers as her hands formed fists. Her heart rate spiked. She was ready to run. Matt took a step back and turned his hands palm-out in a gesture of harmlessness.

It was Matt who broke the silence of the standoff.

"You could have told me."

Pax stayed defiantly silent.

"You can hear people's thoughts. Have you read my mind?" There was something dangerous at the edge of Matt's words.

"Yes, I can. And no, I haven't," Pax breathed. She forced herself to calm down, her hands relaxing at her sides. She felt tired, Matt thought, and sad and ashamed. Matt placed his hands on his hips, waiting. What else was she hiding? What kind of danger was he putting Karen and Foggy in? Doubt rose around him, threatening to drown him. He didn't want to regret rescuing Pax. He didn't want to be fated to keep putting the people he loved in danger.

Pax either understood this or read his mind. She finally relaxed her shoulders and gave in, hanging her head as she explained.

"I'm telekinetic," Pax said, so quiet she was nearly whispering, "And I'm also telepathic. My telekinesis is... It's difficult to control. It bursts out when I'm scared or angry. There is little finesse to it." She took a deep breath, shame and guilt rolling off of her in waves. "My telepathy isn't as strong, but I have much better control over it. One-on-one I can almost always block out the thoughts of the person I'm with. If I am tired or weakened or there are more people, like being with you and Foggy and Karen all at once, it's more difficult."

"So you can really read people's minds." Matt had a sudden understanding of how Foggy had felt, when he had asked of Matt, _So every time I was lying, you knew? And you just played along?_ Matt swallowed at the idea of Pax knowing what he thought, at the idea of the violation, and of what damage a telepath could wreak in the control of someone like Fisk.

"Yes. But I do my best not to. As a telepath, the hard part isn't reading people's thoughts, it's trying to get a moment of quiet for yourself. It's trying to keep the thoughts out." She sighed wearily. "I have not looked into your mind. Not intentionally."

Matt knew she wasn't lying about this, but he didn't know what else there was about her that he didn't know. It'd have to be enough.

"I believe you," Matt said, "And I'm sorry for scaring you. I do want to help you. I just need to know that you aren't keeping anything from me that might jeopardize your safety, or the safety of my friends."

Pax approached until she was close enough that the smell of her surrounded him and he could taste her on every breath. Her skin, sweet with the scent of peaches, and also something softer and more appealing underneath. Her sun warmed hair, the sharp chemical smell of the dye softened by her natural pheromones. She'd had a vanilla milkshake for lunch and her mouth was still cold- Matt snapped himself out of it just as Pax reached out to touch his arm, in the same spot as the night before. Through the fabric of his shirt he could feel the warm blood rushing through her hand.

"You saved me, and I will never forget that. I won't let anyone hurt you, or Foggy, or Karen." Pax promised, her words so sure that Matt felt himself wanting to believe that, maybe, they would all be okay. "And you know I'm not lying, don't you?"

And he did.

* * *

Thank you for reading.


	3. Chapter 3: MLF

Chapter 3: MLF

* * *

That afternoon an actual real-live client dropped into Nelson and Murdock with a time sensitive case, so everyone stayed late to work.

Pax spent her time on the Internet, catching up on world news and Googling dozens of queries on everything from the New York transit system to laundromats to how to write a resumé. She lingered over articles on the dismissed mutant registration act from fifteen years ago and the New York Bulletin's piece on the Daredevil's role in Fisk's capture.

Afterwards Matt and Pax stopped by Matt's place to get her things before heading to Foggy's apartment. The night was chilly and as they walked a fragile silence hung between them. Matt was thinking about the Daredevil work that he had planned for that night, his thoughts so intense and focused they were difficult to tune out. The best Pax's psychic defenses could do was muffle them. The occasional word or abstract sensory image still came through clear, and those Pax hoarded guiltily, and greedily, because each one gave insight into who he was in his other life.

Matt told her when they were getting close to Foggy's place. Pax stroked the sleeve of the borrowed jacket she wore as she listened.

"Foggy's apartment has a door guard from ten until seven. His place is on the fifth floor, second to last door down on the right. There's a fire escape that goes by the windows in the living room." Matt briefed her.

"Are you going to tell Foggy?" Pax asked. They both stopped. The streetlamp overhead flicked on, buzzing angrily as it shone its amber light into the gloaming. He turned his face towards her and the lenses of his glasses flashed red.

"That you can read minds? No. But maybe you should."

Pax bit her lip and looked up into the shadows cast by buildings and the darkening sky.

"Because he is risking so much to help me," She said.

"Because he is a good person and he cares about what happens to you, and he deserves the truth." Matt corrected her.

"You did not tell Foggy your secrets. Foggy cares about what happens to you." Pax turned her gaze on him. Matt didn't know what Pax's eyes looked like, but he was fast learning to recognize the feeling that meant her stare was getting intense and penetrating (it was the faintest prickling sensation on the back of his neck). He bristled at Pax's observation, gripping his cane in both hands and raising it to his chest.

"Yes, and when he found out it nearly shattered our friendship. Keeping Foggy in the dark was safer. I was keeping him out of it. In this, Foggy's safety is jeopardized by not having all the information. He's involved now."

"If he asks me, I will tell him." Pax conceded. "But about tonight-"

Matt's mouth tightened as he anticipated her next request.

"It is going to be dangerous. I know PRISM, I know their security and which assets they have active. I should come with you."

Matt zeroed in on her heartbeat as she spoke, inhaling the scent of her fear and pain, and the white hot wrath underneath.

"You're terrified," He said levelly. "And you're angry. You're doing a good job keeping control, maintaining your breathing and reining in your emotions, but your heartbeat gives you away. Just thinking about going back there is hurting you. I don't know what you would do if you saw the people who who hurt you, and that makes you a variable."

Pax knew what she would do when she saw the people who hurt her, but she did not think that the knowledge would be comforting for Matt.

Her silence both confirmed Matt's suspicions and cemented his decision. He unclasped his hands from around his cane and began to walk again. Pax stood under the streetlamp a while longer, staring up at the light. When she caught up to Matt he extended his arm to her, and she took it, and he led her down the street.

* * *

"Welcome to me casa!" Foggy said cheerfully. "It's not much, but it's home."

Pax set her bag of clothes down beside the door and took her shoes off. She hung up Matt's jacket and then, having no further way to stall, she walked into the apartment. She moved so slowly and reluctantly you'd think Foggy's place was a haunted house and she was expecting an actor in zombie makeup to jump out at her, Foggy thought. Foggy locked the deadbolt and the chain lock on the door behind them and followed Pax as she padded silently in sock feet.

She looked around at the off-white walls and (how had Foggy not noticed until now?) rather beat-up furniture. She peered into the kitchen, noted all the windows and doors. "It is more than adequate," she said fairly. She seemed to relax a bit and took to getting comfortable, which she did in her own weird way.

Pax walked the perimeter of the room, fingers brushing over a low bookshelf heavy laden with sci-fi and fantasy paperbacks, a flat screen television, a beat-up looking couch, an old leather reclining chair, a cedar coffee table that looked handmade. She looked at that longer than the rest, like she was trying to place it.

"I made that table in wood shop," Foggy volunteered, "Compared to a cuckoo clock the table seemed like the more doable final project. And you can hardly even tell that one leg is shorter than all the rest. Can I get you something to drink? I'm gonna make myself a sandwich, do you want one?"

Pax, who had gravitated back to the bookshelf, looked up from scanning the titles. "Water, please. And yes to the sandwich."

Foggy bustled into the kitchen, rolling up his shirt sleeves as he went. He filled matching Star Wars coffee mugs with water from the tap and pulled down two plates from the cupboard and sandwich ingredients out of the fridge.

From the living room he heard the sound of Pax flipping through pages. He wondered what she had done during her free time, when she wasn't in a tank or being trained to murder people. Surely even superpowered mutant experiments must get a day off now and again? Yeah, probably not.

As he worked he wondered if Pax had ever seen the Lord of the Rings trilogy, if Karen liked fantasy or if she stayed in her sci-fi nerd lane, and how Matt's quest for information was going. He assembled two sandwiches, put the food back in the fridge, and carried the two plates and two mugs into the living room.

Pax was sitting on the floor with her back against his bookshelf and her knees bent in front of her. She was reading his copy of _The Silmarillion_ (which he really had read, but was admittedly much less worn than his copy of _The Hobbit_ ). She set the book down on the floor beside her and took a mug and one of the precariously balanced plates from Foggy.

"Thank you," She said.

"You can totally sit on the sofa. If you want. Just so you know," Foggy said. He took a seat in the creaky recliner and rested his plate on his knees.

Pax took a drink of water before answering. "This is fine."

"You got something against quality furniture?" Foggy joked.

"My cell only had a cot in it, and it folded into the wall during the day. I'm used to sitting on the floor."

Foggy didn't know what to say to that, but he did know he felt like kind of a jerk. "Oh," he said. "Okay."

Pax crossed her legs and set her plate in her lap. Foggy watched her take a bite of the sandwich and smiled a satisfied smile when she made the same happy sound she had upon tasting the milkshake earlier. The Nelsons took care of people with food, and Foggy had both inherited that trait and carried on the tradition to the best of his ability, though he wasn't much of a cook.

 _And if anyone ever needed feeding up,_ Foggy thought, eyes lingering on her skinny wrists, _it's her._ Pax was quietly amused by that thought.

"I do make a pretty mean sandwich, if I do say so myself. My mom actually wanted me to be a butcher, but alas, I think my ways with meats and cheeses are destined to remain a hobby. Law is my true calling."

Foggy took a bite out of his sandwich, swallowed, and asked, "Speaking of hobbies, what do you know about Matt's nocturnal activities?"

Pax chewed thoughtfully.

"I know he is the Daredevil," Pax said, "I know that you know, but that Karen does not know. I read the articles on the computer today, the ones about the bombings and the police that were shot. I also read the article about how the Daredevil detained Fisk when he escaped from FBI custody."

"You know he didn't do it," Foggy jumped to defend his friend, his mouth getting ahead of him before he could stop it. "He didn't blow up those buildings or shoot those cops."

Pax met Foggy's eyes and looked at him in a way that made him feel like she might be seeing his insides. Foggy felt his ears turning red and stared down at his sandwich.

"I know he didn't," Pax said. "I've known evil, and I've known heroes. Matt has it in him, the thing that makes a person go out there and push back against the dark. He is a hero."

"A hero," Foggy echoed. Thinking of his stupid, clever, awesome, funny, brave, beautiful, good, _stupid reckless liar_ of a best friend out there being a hero made his stomach clench like a fist and his appetite shrivel up. _Heroes get hurt,_ Foggy thought. Heroes go places where Foggy could not follow and end up bloody martyrs. "Yeah. Matty's a good egg."

They finished their sandwiches and Foggy collected their dishes and put them in the sink. When he reentered the living room he had a DVD case in his hands, which he held up for Pax's inspection.

"You ever seen _The Fellowship of the Ring_?" Foggy asked her. She shook her head no.

"Do you want to watch it?" Foggy offered hopefully.

Pax nodded shyly and took a perch on the arm of the couch. Foggy grinned and bent to put in the DVD.

* * *

Matt was on his way to the warehouse from the night before when he inadvertently interrupted a rape in progress.

He was travelling across rooftops when he heard it- in a nearby alley between a night club and a squat apartment building. A car was idling, and beneath the rumble of the engine there he heard two voices. One voice was thick with anger and the other was choking out a frantic series of "no"s. Matt halted and climbed down to get a better listen, hanging off of the metal railing of a balcony. When he directed all his focus to the black station wagon below he could hear the sounds of a quiet struggle; of threads snapping as someone yanked on a shirt, and the taste of tears and fear.

He dropped off the balcony, landing lightly on the top of a closed dumpster and then jumping down the ground. It only took five rapid strides for him to reach the car. He approached the driver's side and swung the door open. An older man was on top of a younger man, a teenager, the older man smothering the teen's mouth with one hand and gripping a hunting knife in the other. Before the assailant could react Matt punched him in the side of the head. Dazed, the man dropped the knife and Daredevil dragged him out of the car and threw him onto the ground.

Behind him, the young man in the car was fumbling with his door handle, heart hammering and vomit rising in the back of his throat. He was frightened but uninjured. The older man pushed himself off of the pavement and lunged at Matt, careless with rage and pain. Matt pulled back his fist and struck.

The crunch of cartilage was satisfying. The older man swore in pain and swung wildly, coppery blood flowing over his mouth and chin. Matt ducked and dodged the artless punches easily, taking the first opening he detected to deliver a roundhouse kick to the would-be rapist's torso. He fell backwards into a pile of wet trash bags, gasping for air, and the rage drained out of him so that he was just afraid.

Matt walked foreword and kicked him once more, so that a rib broke under the toe of his boot, and then turned to the young man standing at the entrance to the alley.

By his size and smell and heartbeat he couldn't have been older than sixteen or seventeen. His legs were trembling as he stared at Matt, panting and smelling like acrid fear, fresh hair dye, and the series of fruity and deceptively alcoholic drinks he had consumed within the last hour.

"Oh my God," the younger guy said. He was wearing jean jacket decorated with pins and buttons and a pair of pants covered in zippers. His words slurred in his mouth. "That was amazing. You're _The Devil of Hell's Kitchen_ , aren't you? Oh my God. Thank you."

Matt was already moving deeper into the shadows of the alley when the young man called out, "Your outfit is totally hot!"

Matt smiled to himself, broke into a run and launched himself up back up onto the dumpster, up a drain pipe, and back onto the roof.

* * *

Throughout the film Foggy kept looking over at Pax from his end of the couch, watching her face for her reactions. He knew people found it kind of annoying, being watched as you're trying to watch a thing, but he couldn't help it. Pax's reactions to things like milkshakes and movies were adorable, the sincere delight and little gasps of surprise at odds with her usually quiet, distant demeanour and controlled, almost monotonous way of talking.

Foggy was also an unapologetic vicarious-experiencer, in that he loved showing people things he loved and living it through them for the first time again. Since Pax basically hadn't seen or done anything fun ever, Foggy saw a lot of potential there. He already had a mental list of different movies and food he intended to introduce her to.

When the credits rolled Foggy asked Pax what she thought. Pax started to answer but yawned instead, trying to stifle it and failing. Foggy was reminded of those Youtube videos of kittens trying not to fall asleep. Of course, cute as she was, Pax could kill him with her brain. Kittens didn't do that.

"Ah, that reminds me. It's around here somewhere..."

Foggy left Pax on the couch and went rummaging around in the hall closet. He pulled out a sleeping bag with a triumphant cry. He brought it into the living room hoisted above his head like a trophy.

"Found it! I bought this baby for a camping trip in college but never used it. It all worked out though, since I don't really think I'm a camping kind of guy, and now you can use it."

"Foggy," Pax said. She stood and quirked her head, like she was listening. How did Foggy end up surrounding himself with people who stand there and listen to things no one else can hear? "You should open the window." Foggy lowered the sleeping bag and looked at Pax funny. She pointed to which window she meant, head still quirked in the listening position.

"Okay. Sure." Foggy dropped the sleeping bag on the couch and went over to the window. He had just slid it up and open when the Daredevil appeared at his window.

"Holy shit!" Foggy cursed, stumbling backwards. When his brain caught up and he realized who it was he groaned, then mimed a furious punch at Matt, who was currently getting himself through the window. "Matt! You scared the crap out of me, buddy! Don't do that!"

Pax turned off the lamp in the living room so that the only light was the light from the muted television playing the DVD's main menu sequence over and over. In the flickering dimness, the vision of Matt in his Daredevil suit was more than a little chilling. Pax heard Foggy internally remind himself that this was Matty, his best friend, and thus was no one to be afraid of.

"Sorry," Matt said in his Daredevil voice, and then he cleared his throat and raised his hands to pull off his mask. "Sorry," He said in his Matt Murdock voice.

"What's going on? Why are you here? You got shot didn't you. Oh God, I don't want to have to dig a bullet out of you, Murdock."

"No, no." Matt said. He was a little out of breath. "Pax, I went back to the warehouse, and there was..." He leaned back against the windowsill and wiped his hair off his forehead.

Foggy sat down on the couch. Pax came closer, her eyes reflecting the light from the television. Her face got intense in a way that made a cold shiver run down Foggy's spine.

"They're dead. All of them." Pax said, her voice wavering. Matt nodded and licked his lips before he continued.

"When I got close it felt too quiet. Then I smelled the bodies. It was mostly PRISM's people, though there were a couple of Fisk's men among the dead. It was a massacre."

Pax's eyes widened at the memory, of the massive quantities of clotted blood, the smell of scorched flesh, the way the bodies had all been drug into the middle of the floor. She began to tremble all over with barely-suppressed hatred and (though she was not the one responsible) a fear of punishment so deeply ingrained it was automatic.

"From what I could pick up," Matt said, straightening and crossing his arms over his chest, "The bodies had been there about twenty-four hours. Pax and I must have just missed it. I think there was a confrontation between Fisk and PRISM. Tensions were high, they were focused on the threat in front of them, so no one saw the hit coming."

"There was a third party." Foggy said, thinking aloud as he connected the dots.

"Yeah. This third party clearly had their own motives and they weren't afraid to tangle with both PRISM and Fisk to get what they want. I found some blood that was... Well, I've never smelled anything like it. There was fire damage but no accelerant, and some kind of, uh, bone projectiles stuck in the walls."

"You think the third party had mutants working with them?" Foggy asked, his words touched with a kind of dark awe.

Matt considered present company and hesitated before answering. "I'm not positive, but I think so."

"What about Fisk? Was he there? Is Fisk dead?" Foggy's words tumbled out his mouth in a rush.

"No," Matt scoffed with a shake of his head, "But his head of security took a bone projectile to the chest. Fisk must have gotten out somehow. Naturally," Matt said, his loathing undisguised. "But it's the third party that I'm most interested in. I might have caught their trail, but I want to know what I'm up against. Pax, do you know who this was?"

Pax sat down on the edge of Foggy's coffee table, which wobbled slightly, and pressed her fingers to her temples.

"I don't know. There are a few mutant activist groups, but they are mostly peaceful. I have never heard of anything like this. I don't- I am sorry, I don't know."

"Do you know what they wanted?" Matt asked her.

Pax dug her nails into the thin skin of her temples, using the pain to steady her. She couldn't be thinking about them right now. Vox and Nyx, who she had left behind. If the Program was being hit then they could already be dead. She should have gone for them the moment Matt pulled her out of that life-stasis tank. She pressed her nails in harder, until she could think clearly through the worry, through the hate and fear.

"Pax? You okay?" Foggy asked gently.

"No," She finally said. She dropped her hands in her lap. "I don't know what they wanted. It could be a rival group offering a similar product and wanting to take out the competition, which would explain the evidence of mutant abilities at the scene. Or... It's less likely, but it could be a mutant group motivated by a desire for justice, or vengeance. PRISM has a long history of experimentation on and torture of its subjects. Maybe someone discovered this and decided to put a stop it."

"Hey, wait a second," Foggy said, standing up and rubbing his sweaty palms on his pants (vigilante talk always made him nervous). "This might work for us. So Fisk goes to pick up his, uh, his weapon and the meeting is ambushed. All of PRISM's people are dead, so if they had any idea who sprung Pax, they're not telling. I'm thinking that Fisk might believe this third party is who took Pax. It's not an unreasonable conclusion to come to."

Matt and Pax thought about Foggy's theory.

"You could be right," Matt finally said, "Which would be a relief. Fisk would be watching this third party, expending his energy tracking them down. In fact," he mused aloud, and Pax finished his thought for him.

"You might be able to follow Fisk's men to find the third party."

"Yes, that is a spectacular idea. After narrowly avoiding death in the form of bone daggers and fire, chase down the deadly mutants you should be counting your blessings that you missed the first time around!" Foggy winced and shot a look at Pax. "Er, sorry."

"No offence taken," Pax said with a shrug of her shoulders. "I am fairly deadly."

Her attempt at a joke fell flat. There was an awkward silence as Matt rubbed his hand against his chin, the stubble rasping underneath his calloused fingers. Foggy looked back and forth between Matt and Pax.

"We need more information. I'm going to see what Fisk's men know," Matt finally said, pulling his mask back on and adjusting it. "I might be able to overhear a conversation, maybe crack some heads for information."

"Please, be careful," Foggy pleaded with Matt. Pax knew that both his words and his thoughts sincere and full of love. "This isn't like anything else you've gone up against before. I really don't want to have to come after you with my trusty baseball bat and save your butt."

"I've dealt with ninja," Matt said, his mouth quirking in a dark smile. "It can't be much different."

"You fought a ninja, singular, and you almost died." Foggy corrected him.

Matt laughed and slid the window open. The night sounds of Hell's Kitchen called up to them from the streets below. He had one leg out the window when he turned to Pax. She stood up, illuminated from behind by the television so that her face was in shadow, but Matt could sense her as vividly as always. Her hands were fists at her sides, her short nails cutting into her palms so that he smelled a whisper-trace of blood, her fear turning her heartbeat rapid and anger making it strong.

"Please, stay with Foggy." Matt asked of her. "I'll call later, from the burner phone." Then he was out the window and gone.

* * *

Foggy and Pax tried to stay up to wait for Matt's phone call, but Foggy didn't make it halfway into The Two Towers before falling asleep on the couch. Pax slipped the remote out from under Foggy's hand and turned the television off. She retrieved the copy of The Silmarillion, and sat back on the floor with her back against the bookshelf. As she read her defences lowered and Foggy's dreams played out in the back of her mind in a slow-moving, pastel-coloured series of images and feelings.

Then something was different, a change in the psychic landscape. Someone was coming. Pax sensed the person in the hallway as they approached from the stairs. This mind was as different from Foggy's as could be. This person's thoughts were scarlet like blood on snow, as sharp and precise as a scalpel.

 _Pax,_ the stranger reached for her mentally.

The stranger stopped just outside the apartment door. Pax pushed telepathically, trying to see into the person's mind, to divine their motivations. It was almost impossible for the way the thoughts writhed, shifted, changed and warped and changed again. Trying to read this mind had Pax feeling like Tam Lin's lover, trying to hold onto her beloved as he changed from a burning coal to a writhing serpent to a cloud of steam.

 _Pax,_ the thoughts whispered, _I'm a friend. Come to the door._

Pax put the book down and stood, every nerve ending tingling with warning, but anticipation and curiosity were within her just as strongly. On the couch Foggy stirred and started to wake. Pax reached out with her powers and telepathically induced a deep sleep before he could wake up properly. His face relaxed and he slumped back in the couch, snoring softly.

Pax moved silently across the floor, reached the door, hesitated with her hand on the doorknob.

 _You're the one who took down PRISM,_ Pax guessed, her telepathic message no more than a whisper. The mind behind the door was pleased in a sly way, pleased that Pax knew of them.

 _I can take you to Vox,_ the stranger returned. They projected a single image through the telepathic connection- Vox, bleeding from a cut over her eye, eyes wild with terror, but alive. Alive.

Pax opened the door.

* * *

"What do you mean she's gone?" Matt barked. Then, remembering who he was talking to, he pressed one hand to his forehead and sighed. "I'm sorry Foggy. Just tell me what happened."

"That's all I got! One minute I'm napping on the couch, and I start to wake up and I see Pax standing there, and she looks kind of, I don't know, like she's about to go somewhere. Then all of a sudden I'm so tired I literally cannot stay awake. It was like someone chloroformed me."

"Was there anyone else in the apartment?" Matt asked, "Did you see anything? Hear anything?"

Foggy's guilt was palpable even over the poor cellphone reception. "No, Matt, I'm sorry. God, I don't know. She just left."

"Don't go after her," Matt said, keeping the phone pressed to his ear with his shoulder as he pulled on the boots he'd just taken off. "I'm going out now. I'll find her. Call you when I do."

"What if you don't find her?" Foggy asked, voice strained.

"I'll call you," Matt said. He ended the call, leaving Foggy to panic on his own.

* * *

The person who came for Pax looked like the door guard, but they were not the door guard. They didn't move like a forty-something man with a dodgy knee and poor muscle tone, they moved like a panther, all dangerous grace.

Also, the real door guard was sleeping in his seat, a drugged donut in his hand. When Pax and the stranger passed him and Pax raised her eyebrows the stranger smirked, and the door-guard-who-was-not-the-door-guard's eyes flashed yellow.

They got into a black SUV that was waiting down the street from Foggy's apartment building, but they didn't drive far. The driver was a heavyset man wearing mirrored aviator glasses and with short, very sharp spikes in place of head hair and eyebrows. Once they were sitting in the backseat of the car the stranger's appearance rippled and wavered, and then they were a beautiful blond-haired woman with hooded eyes. No one in the car spoke. They stayed in Hell's Kitchen, the car soon pulling up around the back of an establishment whose pink neon sign read _The Fairytail Lounge._

As soon as Pax stepped out of the car she felt Vox. Her familiar thoughts were like fireflies in the darkness, leading Pax to her. Vox was somewhere in the basement of the Fairytale Lounge, and she was alive and she was waiting.

The stranger led Pax to the back entrance. The door was heavy metal and had been tagged in bright red spray paint with the letters 'MLF' contained within a circle. They only waited a second before the door swung open.

An older woman stood in the doorway. She had long silver hair tied back tightly and was wearing an impeccable, very expensive looking white suit. Pax felt a tickle as the woman reached out and identified her telepathically. Pax had to fight to keep her natural defenses from throwing the woman out of her head, but she did it, so that she could see Vox. A psychic exchange happened between the silver-haired telepath and the stranger, who nodded, seemingly satisfied.

"Take me to Vox," Pax said, and the stranger inclined her head.

"Of course," The stranger said, their voice husky and pleasant.

They led Pax down a short hallway, down a wooden staircase, and then along another hallway. They came out in a room sparsely furnished with cast-off furniture, much of it upholstered in a faded red velvet. There were racks of costumes pushed along the walls, most nothing more than tiny pieces of spandex or sequined fabric, and a line of old silvered mirrors. Theatre-style spotlights illuminated the centre of the room and cast the rest in deep shadow.

A redheaded woman with pale, bony protrusions framing her eyebrows, the tops of her cheekbones, and her shoulders was sitting on a settee next to a dark-skinned young woman wearing a white PRISM jumpsuit. It was Vox. She sprang to her feet when Pax entered the room and Pax ran to her.

 _Sister,_ Vox thought. Her mental voice sounded like music in Pax's head.

Pax and Vox crashed together in a desperate hug. In the Program they had been forbidden to touch each other. It was strange and wonderful to touch and be touched and not expect to be punished if you were caught. They hugged for a long time, Pax's face pressed into Vox's neck and Vox gently petting the back of Pax's neck, until the taller girl pulled Pax back by her shoulders to look at her.

 _You look so different,_ Vox thought. She reached out to touch Pax's hair. _You look strong._

Pax touched Vox's very short hair in return, and then the unmarred skin just beside the cut over Vox's eye. It was clean and held closed by two little butterfly bandages.

 _I am so glad you're safe,_ Pax told her, putting all of her feeling into the thought. And then, unable to hold herself back anymore, Pax asked,

"Nyx?"

At the look on Vox's face Pax's heart skipped a beat.

"Where is Nyx?" Pax insisted, a frantic anxiety rising in her chest. "Where are they?"

I don't know, Vox finally signed, her usually graceful hands moving haltingly.

The MLF, (Vox fingerspelled) they raided the base. The fighting was terrible, there were many casualties for PRISM. In the chaos I lost track of Nyx. Mr. Donnelley reached the main computers and locked down the base. Mystique got me out, (Vox pointed to the stranger who had brought Pax there) at the cost of leaving one of her people behind. We don't know where Nyx is, (Vox concluded).

"You left Nyx to die," Pax signed forcefully along with her spoken words for emphasis.

Vox looked at her with a profound sadness, lost for words. Pax's hands dropped to hang by her sides, and with an expression as cold and severe as ice she turned to face Mystique, who no longer blonde. She was naked and very blue, and very beautiful, with sharp yellow eyes and red hair that slicked back away from her face to curl around her neck.

"What is this MLF?" Pax asked. "Who are you? What do you want with us?"

Mystique put a hand on one hip and looked at Pax with a calculating way.

"It's the Mutant Liberation Front, and it's exactly what it sounds like. The _Homo sapiens_ and their news stations would call them anarchists, radicals, terrorists, but they think of themselves as avenging angels. It's not my group, but I worked with them to free you and the others." Mystique's voice was eerily beautiful, like many different voices modulated to twine together in harmony.

"You didn't free Nyx," Pax spat like venom.

"No, but we freed your friend here. And we were going to free you, the night that your _transfer of ownership_ was scheduled. We had an inside man and everything was in place. But wouldn't you know it? We show up and you're already gone. I never thought to factor in that friend of yours who has been running around this side of the city. Speaking of the Devil, do you think you think he will be joining us soon? It's rude to linger in doorways, you know."

The sound of a metal door slamming reverberated through the space, and a moment later Matt appeared at the entrance to the room, an intimidating figure all in red and devilry. A tall, wiry man dressed in black body armor (literally) stepped out of the shadows at the edge the room and faced the Daredevil down.

Matt reached for his baton, gloved hand hovering over where it was strapped to the side of his leg. The man in black flexed his arms and grinned like the cheshire cat.

Mystique smirked.

"Now, that's not necessary. I suppose you'll be wanting her back, which I have no objection to. In fact, we're happy to let Pax go wherever she wants with whoever she wants."

To Pax the yellow-eyed mutant said, "In fact, we even have some papers for you, to help that happen. Passport, birth certificate, a whole false history. We also took your records from PRISM's base, for interest. It's all there. Oh, and a bank account in your new name, with some funds to help you settle where you choose." Mystique nodded to the redheaded woman with the bone protrusions, who reached into her trench coat and pulled out a manila file folder.

The redhead stood and handed the file to Pax. Pax took it but didn't open it. The redheaded woman sat down again.

"What's the catch?" Matt demanded, his voice rough. "We're supposed to believe that you're just being Good Samaritans?" He turned the unseeing eyes of his mask on Mystique.

"Listen to my heartbeat as I tell you this," Mystique said slowly, as if she was talking to a child. "The MLF wants no more than justice for mutantkind. They have had PRISM in their crosshairs for years. Seeing Pax and Vox freed is motivation enough for them. As for myself..."

Mystique glided across the floor towards Pax. Pax stiffened and Matt got ready to spring in between them if he needed to.

 _It's okay, I'm alright,_ Pax reached out to Matt, her telepathic whisper as quiet and unobtrusive as she could make it. He started at the sound of her voice in his head but rolled with it, giving a short nod and moving his hand away from his baton. He kept the man in black and Mystique in the focus of his senses, though, and he didn't drop his guard.

"I just want you to remember me and what I did for you. And I want you to know that, if you ever desire it, you are more than welcome among the Brotherhood."

"The Brotherhood," Pax echoed, and Mystique tossed her head.

"Your abilities are exceptional, and I can always use someone of your caliber. We could help you realize your potential." Mystique smiled at this, and Pax sensed that she was sincere, that Mystique truly believed what she said. Of course, that didn't make it true. "You can come with us right now, if you want."

After a long pause Pax hugged the file to her chest and shook her head. "I want to go back. To Hell's Kitchen. We are going to leave now."

"Whatever you like," Mystique soothed, stepping aside so that Pax had a clear line to the door. "Just remember what I said, and what we did for you."

The man in black blew Matt a kiss before he stepped back into the shadows and vanished. Matt frowned with tight lips as he walked across the room. He stopped just short of Pax and Vox and waited.

Vox had her arms wrapped around herself and was staring down at the ground. Pax looked into her friend's face, saw the guilt and the fear and the hurt there. She shuffled the file into one arm so she could take her friend's hand with the other.

"I'm sorry about what I said. I know you tried. I am happy that you are free."

Vox squeezed Pax's hand. Pax experienced her emotions through their connection, love and sorrow and bittersweet happiness, and also determination.

"You're staying with the MLF, aren't you?" Pax's usual emotionless mask was failing her. Her voice was thick with the effort of keeping back tears and Matt could hear her pulse skyrocket. Vox pulled Pax into another hug, so Pax's file was squished between them. When they separated Vox signed,

I want to be safe. I want to help others like us to be safe. I am going to go with them, and we will find Nyx and I will bring her home.

I understand, signed Pax. "I'll miss you." She said aloud. And then, in a psychic whisper between them, _If you ever need me, just call. I will always come._

The redhead in the trench coat slid her hands into her pockets and spoke in a thick County Donegal accent. "I'm with the MLF. We're leaving the state tonight, but when we reach a secure location we'll get Vox in touch. It's not goodbye forever."

 _Not forever,_ thought Vox. Pax smiled sadly.

 _We're finally free,_ Pax's telepathic voice was accompanied by an avalanche of her memories and feelings, _And now we're apart._

 _But not forever,_ Vox promised.

Vox bent her head to place a kiss on Pax's cheek. Time and space cracked. Pax's field of vision narrowed and the thing inside of her, the thing that had been keeping her going since her rescue, finally broke. Pax reached for Vox, but the redheaded woman was leading her away, and someone's gloved hand was on her shoulder, and the world was a spinning, dizzying mess of too-much, and everyone's thoughts were too loud, and then Vox was gone.

* * *

This chapter was a bit longer than the previous two, and it was very enjoyable to write. I hope you enjoyed it too.

My choice of Foggy's favourite book I was very much inspired by Kat_C_Lyon's lovely "Bedtime Stories" on AO3.

Thanks for reading.


	4. Chapter 4: weak links

Chapter 4: weak links

* * *

Pax plunged her hands back into the sink of hot water, the soap suds crackling softly and the water sloshing as she scrubbed a dish. Pax liked doing dishes. Something about the smell of the soap and the little rhythmic motions soothed her. The sensory experience always brought one of the few childhood memories she had left to the front of her mind.

She was little, standing on a wooden chair pushed up against the kitchen counter. She was wearing tights with grass stains on the knees and an adult sized apron over a floral print dress. She was helping to wash the dishes after dinner. Vaguely-defined, adult-shaped figures move around in the background of the memory, but she can't pick anyone out. A man that smelled like blood cedar aftershave stood beside her, drying dishes with a towel. Her foster father? She could never see his face.

She pushed harder into the memory, inhaled the scent of the dish soap, trying to see the man's face. Nothing came, until another memory sprang foreword. A memory from later, from just after her powers manifested.

While her remaining childhood memories were distorted and hazy, this one was cruel in its clarity. She was restrained facedown and there were people all around, putting their gloved hands on her, and she was crying. She was afraid. _Oh God,_ she had prayed silently, _what did I do wrong?_

An unconscious burst of power shattered the dish in her hands. The tinkling crash brought her back to the present. Ceramic shards rained into the sink and scattered across the counters and floor. She stood there for a while, looking down at her hands. There was a shallow cut across her left palm. Blood mingled with the soapy water on her hands and trickled down her wrist in pink rivulets.

Pax spent a long time picking jagged pieces off of the counters and out of the sink. When she finished the tips of her fingers dripped blood. She drained the sink, wiped up the droplets of her blood, and swept the floor twice. As she worked memories from her time with PRISM flashed by her minds eye. One long blur of blood, adrenaline, fear, her pain, other people's pain, and more blood. Her power crackled within her, straining for release.

Before she left for the office Pax dug around in Foggy's medicine cabinet and came up with an unopened roll of gauze. She bandaged the cut on her palm as PRISM's Asset Maintenance and Wound Hygiene Guidelines ran through her head. She cut the gauze into thinner strips and wrapped the snowy material around her fingers with ritualistic care. When she was done she looked down at the bandaging and considered how the act of bandaging herself had raised a white barrier in her mind, muffling the memories and quieting the power inside of her.

* * *

"I'm kind of worried about Pax," Foggy admitted. Matt paused his screen reader and turned his face in Foggy's direction. The two of them were at the table in the conference room at the office, each with their laptop in front of them and papers in both braille and print spread out around them.

"If she's wearing out her welcome I can ask her to stay with me tonight," Matt said understandingly. "She's been over at your place for a few nights in a row, and I know you didn't think you'd be signing on for a full-time roommate."

"No, it's not that," Foggy said. "Pax is fine. Most of the time she just reads while I do my own thing. It's just that... Well, I come home and she's just there, sitting alone in the dark. She's even more distant, to the point where she's kind of reminding me of a robot. The other day she got out of the apartment to do some laundry, but it's still worrying."

"I understand what you're saying," Matt said once Foggy finished pouring out his concern. "I think that what happened with Vox, having to say goodbye... Well, she's been through a lot. We just have to be patient with her."

"She hasn't even looked in the folder," Foggy said, his words pained. "It's just been sitting there on the coffee table, fat with secrets. It's killing me."

Matt's lips quirked in an almost-smile. "She'll open it when she is ready," Matt assured Foggy.

"It's been five days. That's almost a week. And her file from PRISM is in there! Doesn't she want to know who she is?"

"Maybe she's scared?" Matt offered. "I mean, it's a pretty big deal."

"Yes! Which is why _I think_ that what she needs is the support of her friends." Matt heard the soft creaking of leather as Foggy pulled something out of his briefcase, and the brush of Foggy's hands over thick paper.

"Oh Foggy, you didn't." Matt groaned.

"What?" Foggy demanded. "I have an insatiable curiosity, a thirst for truth!"

Matt shook his head. "You're unbelievable."

"Okay, but hold up! Pax is coming by for lunch, right? We were going to talk to her anyway, I thought we might as well bring this up too. And it's not just my own curiosity driving me here," Foggy insisted. He shuffled the folder in his hands. "This is really important, and Pax should know this stuff. And maybe she's scared, but then it's our job as her friends to encourage her and give her moral support, right?"

Matt pressed his earbud more securely into his ear and leaned over his laptop.

"If this backfires," Matt said dryly, "I'm not scraping you off whatever wall Pax flattens you against."

"I have faith in the strength of our friendship," Foggy assured his best friend as he set the file on the centre of the table.

* * *

Pax arrived at the office with a large paper takeaway bag from _Mamoun's_ in her arms. Foggy met her at the door.

"Hey Pax." Foggy said brightly. He took the food from her. "Thanks for picking up the grub. Hey, what happened to your hands?" His face dropped into a concerned expression.

Pax didn't know what to do with concern. She wished that Foggy was angry; anger she knew what to do with.

"I was washing dishes and I broke a plate. I'm sorry. I will replace it." Pax apologized. She slid her hands into the pockets of the much-too-large Columbia University hoodie she was wearing. It was Foggy's, but it was still cool outside and Pax didn't have a jacket yet.

"Ah, don't worry about it, I break dishes all the time, and they're all mismatched anyway. I just pick up a bunch more whenever Ikea has a sale."

Foggy and Pax moved into the conference room. Matt was sitting at the table, reading something on his laptop. When Pax and Foggy entered into the room he shut the laptop and pushed it and his braille display to the side. As she passed him Pax saw him lift his chin, just the tiniest of motions, as he scented her blood underneath the bandages.

"You alright?" He asked.

Pax knew that he had heard her give her explanation to Foggy. She didn't know what else to say. "I just broke a dish. It's fine."

She took the seat across from Matt. Her gaze fell to rest on the file in the middle of the table.

Foggy froze mid-reach in handing Matt his falafel, following where Pax was looking. Matt shifted in his seat, apologies and explanations formulating in his head. They both waited a breathless moment as they anticipated Pax's response. Pax sighed softly.

"If I open it I will have to leave you." Pax explained, sadness tinting her words despite her best efforts.

"What? No, that's not true at all." Foggy said, shaking his head so vigorously that his hair untucked from behind his ears and fell around his face. He took a seat at the head of the table, so he was triangle point between Pax and Matt.

"Why do you feel that way?" Matt asked. He folded his hands on the table in front of him. The body language combined with his cool expression and calm words made Pax think of someone you'd feel safe talking to, like a therapist or a priest.

"You took me in because I was helpless," Pax said, with a nod to Matt and Foggy. "Pathetic, even. I had no one, no home. I don't even know my name. But now, thanks to the MLF, I can have a new life. A name and money to that name and... And you won't need to help me anymore."

"You think we just feel sorry for you or something?" Foggy asked, like he couldn't believe her. "I can't speak for Matt, but I know I'm not obligated. I'm not doing anything I don't want to. Aren't we friends?"

Pax hesitated, opening her mouth and then closing it again. She tilted her head to the side in uncertainty.

"The answer is _yes_ ," Foggy said, sounding more than halfway between amusement and frustration, "We are friends. And friends hang out and look after each other and stuff."

"But-" Pax began, and Foggy cut her off.

"No buts. We're your friends, whether you want us or not."

"But I am dangerous." Pax finished, giving Foggy a look that, while admittedly blood chilling, wasn't enough to make him stand down. He had dated Marci, after all.

"Pax," Matt cleared his throat. "You're our friend. If you want to leave, you can. If you want to stay in Hell's Kitchen, you can. It is your choice."

Pax jumped up from her seat so quickly that her chair fell backwards and clattered against the floor. Her heart pounded and she had to fight the urge to bolt. When she spoke her voice was sharp with barely restrained anger.

"You say you want to protect Hell's Kitchen," She stared at Matt, whose eyes half-focused somewhere close to her face, "But you invite a monster to settle down in your back yard? You should be driving me out."

At the word monster Matt flinched. "Pax, you're not-"

"I am!" Pax shouted, slapping her hand on the conference table. The strange sensory interference that accompanied Pax's telekinetics warned Matt's milliseconds before the table and the chairs that they were sitting in began to shake.

It felt like there was a tiny, particularly violent earthquake just beneath their feet. Foggy gasped, a short and quiet intake of breath, and grabbed the edge of the table. Matt looked less outwardly troubled, but Pax knew what he was thinking, and he was thinking that she was dangerous. Pax quickly pulled the hum of her power back under her skin, but she didn't look any less angry, and she didn't sit down.

"See?" She said, very quiet, like she was reminding herself.

Matt focused intently on Pax. The heat of anger and the scent of adrenaline radiated out from her, and she must have been glaring at him, because the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. His body wanted to increase his heart rate, to direct blood away from his extremities and towards his vital organs in preparation for a fight.

Foggy looked back and forth between Pax and Matt.

"Okay. I think we could all stand to calm down a bit," Foggy beseeched of his best friend and his favourite tiny mutant assassin.

The stand-off lasted a moment longer, Pax staring down Matt and Matt holding like a brick wall. Matt finally shifted in his chair, raising and lowering one shoulder. Pax's shoulders relaxed.

"We will support whatever decision you make. But we don't want you to leave. And I," Matt cleared his throat. "I would like it if you stayed. Or at least came back and visited your friends in Hell's Kitchen every once in a while."

He smiled a half smile in Pax's direction. Foggy smiled in approval at Matt and then turned to nod in pleased agreement at Pax. Pax looked from Matt to Foggy and then back again. Her heart rate slowed and steadied. Then she bent to right her chair and took a seat.

"The food is getting cold. We should eat." She said simply, but she wasn't fooling Matt. He was learning the signs of her happiness- a rarely occurring, subtle constellation of hormones, cardiac rhythm, and the way something soft unfurled and wove through her voice.

* * *

After they had eaten Foggy cleared the table and Pax opened the file. Within the file was another, sealed file with the PRISM logo embossed into the matte black paper. Pax set that to the side, to open when she was alone later (and Foggy didn't push). Then she pulled out her new birth certificate, passport, and fabricated life history. Foggy briefly described each document they inspected to Matt.

"Hey, that's not a bad picture of you. And it's not at all fair that everyone looks better in their passport picture than I do. I wonder how they got that photo anyway?" Foggy mused. Pax passed him the passport to take a look.

"I think yours looked great," Matt joked.

"Ha ha, Matt. Pax, this says your birthday is September 1st?" Foggy pointed to the date of birth on the passport.

"I remember that my birthday was at the beginning of September, so that's probably close." Pax affirmed, inspecting a collection of banking documents. Foggy burst into laughter, which made Pax start and Matt snap his head towards Foggy.

"What is it?" Matt asked.

Foggy managed to get his laughter down to a manageable chortle and slid the passport back to Pax for her to look at.

"Did you not notice what they've put as your name?" Foggy asked gleefully.

"Paxton," Pax read out. Then, seeing the joke, her lips pressed into a small smile. "Penelope Paxton."

Foggy looked delightedly to Matt. Matt smiled and rolled his eyes.

"You know what this means, Matty? I foresaw Pax's new name. I'm officially psychic. Pax, you and me, we're going to do the Vegas circuit. We'll be huge, they'll love us. We can hit the casinos and make millions."

Matt hummed noncommittally, but Foggy was already distracted, leaning over the table to look at the bank statement Pax was holding.

"Woah," Said Foggy. "Your mutant friends sure took care of you, huh? You won't have to work for, like, a year if you don't want to."

Pax stared down at the little numbers that meant so little to her. She wondered if she would grow to care about money as she spent more time among real people.

"Well, I can finally pay you guys back for everything. And I guess I should start looking for an apartment." Pax said, sounding daunted by the prospect.

"Well, there's no rush," Matt jumped in. "You should take your time. I don't mind if you still stay over."

"And I do like how clean my place has been since you started hanging around." Foggy said cheerfully. "Did you know that she's a total neat freak?" He quipped at Matt.

Pax gave him a cool look, but she couldn't hold it and broke into an unsure smile instead. That made Foggy laugh, and Pax didn't understand why, but that made her start laughing too.

* * *

After lunch with "the boys", as Karen liked to call the two of them, Pax visited Claire. She spent around an hour there, before Claire had to leave suddenly to pick up a shift at the ER. From there Pax took two buses and ended up in the middle of Queens.

As she walked she cast a psychic net around her, catching and filtering thoughts, listening for anything out of the ordinary, for any sign of danger. The trick was to keep up the psychic surveillance while maintaining awareness of space, keeping your eyes and ears and your other physical senses sharp and seeking. It took a lot of concentration, and the amount of people out and about on the streets added to the strain. Pax had to resist the urge to turn around and lay down some bruises when two men leaning against the side of a bus station called out for her to "smile, sweetheart", but she managed. Just.

She passed a group of college students taking selfies in front of a music store as she neared her destination, the alley between the music store and a dive bar called _The Dart Inn_. She was still banishing the buzzed thoughts of the college students when she turned the corner, and she nearly bumped into a tall young man with tousled brown hair and a skateboard under his arm.

As she passed him, something about him pinged her radar, and for the split second they made eye contact she knew that he sensed something different about her too. It was the way his pupils dilated and his agile thoughts practically tingled with an instinctual warning. Then she was past him and walking briskly down the alley, and the moment was over. She felt him watch her for a moment, head quirked, as if he was wondering whether he should pursue. Pax just kept walking and didn't give him any reason to follow, and so he dropped his skateboard to the pavement and went on his way.

At the end of the alley was an old phone booth. After some struggling Pax got the cracked glass door open, and then she faced a new problem. She didn't have a key. She stared at the panel for a few seconds, then stepped back a few paces and raised a hand in front of her. She took a breath and pictured where she wanted her power to go.

It wasn't calling the power that was the problem- no, that came naturally and easily, like a burst of laughter or tears, and it felt like pure pleasure when it did. It was controlling it, not releasing too much, and having it go only where you wanted. She didn't want to demolish the thing, just open it.

She released a burst of power, which went a little too far to the left and could have had a touch less raw force behind it, but she got it. The lock cracked in half and the entire panel flew out from the booth with a bang, revealing a compartment inside. Pax ducked the dented metal door as it flew past her head and hit the building wall beside her with a loud clanging clatter. Then, moving quickly, she entered the phone booth to grab the small black duffel bag stowed inside the hidden compartment.

As she bussed back into Hell's Kitchen Pax looked out the window, the duffel bag on her lap and her arms cradled loosely but protectively around it. The city streets were interesting in the evening. She liked the lights, all amber and gold, with spots of tail light red and stoplight green, and the warm white glow of apartment windows.

Her arms tightened on the bag as the bus approached her stop. She couldn't keep it with her. Matt would know in a moment. Foggy could come across it. No, she'd have to store it somewhere else, but somewhere close.

First, she approached a silver haired man in a pinstriped suit standing outside of a restaurant and talking into his bluetooth earpiece. Some people were strong willed and able to resist telepathic suggestion to a point, while others had certain natural defences. This man was not among them. He bent easily under the psychic pressure she put on him, his eyes sliding unfocused as he reached into his pocket for his wallet. He handed Pax the twenty dollars she asked for and smiled vaguely when she told him that he should break it off with his mistress and spend more time with his children. She didn't think he would (it was not a real command) but it would not hurt him to plant the suggestion.

Then she broke the twenty at a convenience store (if there was anything better than chocolate, Pax didn't know of it) and got a paid locker at a place near Foggy's favourite deli. The place was empty, so she double checked the contents of the bag before storing it, sucking on a piece of caramel as she worked. Everything was in order; a spare mission suit folded neatly on top of a pair of boots, gloves, and a mask. There was also an in-ear communicator, a gun, two spare cartridges, and a medical kit. She kept the medical kit and threw the comm, gun, and cartridges in a dumpster.

* * *

When she got back to Matt's apartment she let herself in with her freshly cut key. Matt was sitting on the couch in the living room and reading some documents in braille. He looked up when the door opened, his expression tight. Pax locked the door behind her and pulled off her boots.

"You were gone a while," Matt said, doing his best at sounding unconcerned. He was failing.

Pax pulled off her hoodie and laid it over the back of the armchair and then ran her hand through her hair. She saw how Matt leaned foreword just a few millimetres, how his nostrils flared slightly as he scented the air. Pax didn't mind when he smelled her- she could read his thoughts, after all- but she did hope that her precautions had been enough to avoid smelling like gun oil. His sense of smell was truly spectacular, but it could be a problem as far as keeping secrets goes.

She took a seat on one of the armchairs and brought her legs up to sit cross-legged. "I went for a longer walk tonight," Pax said (and it was the truth, but not the whole truth). "I visited Claire. And I bussed into Queens." (Also true, but not the whole truth).

She must have been free of the smell of gun oil or anything untoward, or Matt was choosing not to pursue it at this time, because he dropped it and his expression relaxed. He gave her a small smile. "There's a pub in Queens that Foggy and I like."

"I like looking at the lights," Pax said.

"I liked that, too." Matt said, just a little wistful. And then, ever so lightly, he inquired, "How is Claire doing?"

"She is doing well. She says hello." Pax said. A mental image rose in her mind's eye, of Matt and Claire, tangled up in each other, breathless and happy. She wondered how close it was to the truth, if they had ever been together, or if Matt just wished they had.

"What are you working on?" Pax asked.

"Our new client, Darren Leslie? I'm going over his case again. His hearing is coming up. But I think I need a break." Matt said, shutting the binder in his hands and resting it on the coffee table.

"Have you eaten? I guess it's a little late, but I can make us something." Pax offered.

"You know how to cook?" Matt asked, intrigued.

"Not really," Pax admitted. "I have read cookbooks. I know the basic concepts. I've just never actually put those concepts into practice."

"You've read cookbooks? Do you read them cover to cover?" Matt teased.

"You would read whatever you could get your hands on too, if your cell was as boring as mine was." Pax replied lightly.

And there it was again. The silence. The awkward silence that sprung up whenever Pax mentioned her time at PRISM with Matt. She didn't know what to do about it.

And then Matt leaned forward in his seat and groaned, a pained, gravelly sound at the back of his throat, and pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead.

"Matt?" Pax asked worriedly. She reached out her feelers, only to pull them back when her telepathic prodding was answered with a streak of white hot sympathy pain behind her left eye.

"Migraine," He answered shortly, grounding his palm into the skin above his eye. "I get them once in a while. It's the noise, it's just too-"

Pax quickly moved from her spot on the chair to sit beside Matt on the sofa. He was trying to play the pain off now, but Pax knew better. She watched his pained face intently.

"May I?" Pax asked softly. She raised her hand, and Matt turned in her general direction, his eyes cloudy with pain. He was about to ask what she meant when the pain spiked again and he bent his head and shut his eyes tight.

Matthew was good. He was a good person. Seeing him in pain, and not even for any good reason, was too much.

Her fingertips touched the skin of his temple and she reached out, her mind touching his. She didn't invade, she didn't read his deepest thoughts (although she could have, and if she was honest with herself, the temptation was there). She just found the pain receptors and nerve connections that were misfiring and, with as gentle and unobtrusive a touch as she could manage, she took away the pain.

"Wow," Matt breathed. Pax's fingertips brushed his hair as she pulled her hand away.

"I'm sorry," Pax said, gesturing anxiously in the space between them. "I didn't wait for your consent. I just- I could feel the pain and-"

"It's okay," Matt said, sounding both awed and relieved. He absently caught her gesturing hand in his. His fingers had callouses, like hers used to. "It's okay. Thank you." He released her hand and smiled.

"Oh," Pax said.

"That was amazing," Matt said. He sounded sincere, and not even a little bit afraid or angry. Pax felt blood rushing to her cheeks and a glow inside her chest from the praise. Praise had been hard to come by, before. It seemed to come easier out in the world, with Matt and Foggy and Karen.

"I think what you do is amazing," Pax said sincerely.

There was a comfortable silence between them. Pax watched Matt's face, the curve of his jaw, the line of his nose, the press of his lips, the faint scar above one eyebrow. And then before Pax knew what she was doing her mouth was saying things without her brain's permission.

"Do you know what I look like?" Pax blurted out.

Matt looked like he was caught off-guard.

"I can sense your size and shape, " Matt started, and then he realized how that sounded, so he quickly went on. "I know your hair is short, and I know it's black, but only because I had a hand in that. I know you wear eyeglasses when you're out. I can tell your pants are blue jeans and that your shirt is a cotton blend. But no, beyond those things, I don't know what you look like." He have Pax a crooked smile. "So you have an advantage there."

"Do you want to know what I look like?" Pax asked.

Matt got very still. Pax leaned back to put more space between them. That must have been a mistake. She opened her mouth to take it back, to reassure him that she would happily keep her advantage, but he cut her off.

"I'd like that," He said.

Pax scooted closer and shifted so that their bodies were turned towards each other. Her knee brushed his. Matt swallowed and raised one hand, left it hanging there in the air, waiting for her lead. She took it and laid it against the side of her face. He placed his other hand on the other side of her face and began looking.

Pax closed her eyes as his thumbs traced over the tops of her cheekbones and across her eyebrows, her forehead, and then his fingers were tracing down her cheeks and across her chin. As he was touching her something was happening inside Pax- it felt like something new in her was waking up, a surge of power longing to jump from her to Matt. It could have been frightening, but the feelings weren't bad, they were just too intense, but she had it under control. Or, she did until the pad of Matt's thumb brushed against her lower lip. That is when she lost control and something happened.

Matt had been deep in concentration, feeling out the individual feature's of Pax's face and mentally piecing them together, when the world turned inside out and upside down.

It was like touching a live wire, except it didn't hurt. It was a sudden current, sparking and racing from the point of contact with Pax, his hands, and straight into his brain. Along the humming current rushed sensations, emotions, a wave of input that was too much to even take in, let alone understand. After that initial wave, a smaller swell of sensory input crested.

This he could make out, but even then, it wasn't right. There was the smell of Matt's deodorant, the sensation of someone's hands on his(?) face, the press of denim against his(?) legs, the press of the band of a sports bra across his(?) ribs. His ribs? His face? Everything smelled and felt and sounded so faint, like the world was muffled.

Flickery gossamer thoughts whispered in his mind, tangling with his own, making it hard to think. The thoughts echoed in on each other; _What is happening, stop the connection, end it, what is happening, PRISM protocol 18, everything is so loud, if the asset is compromised put it down, I can't stop it, get a grip on yourself, you have to sever it, sever the connection._

Realization dawned. These were Pax's thoughts, racing into him through the connection at the speed of thought. Before Matt could collect himself enough to pull his hands away, the final piece of Pax's sensory landscape fell into place, and his world exploded.

Images. Colours, shapes, lines, light and shadow- it took Matt a moment to know what he was looking at. The visual world held so little meaning for him, hadn't meant anything for a long time. When the fractured pieces of sensory input organized themselves into a complete picture, Matt saw.

He was looking at himself. Well, Pax was. He wasn't excessively tall, and they were sitting, but Pax's viewpoint meant that she (he) was looking slightly up at him (himself). His auburn hair had darkened since childhood, a bit at the front falling across his forehead, and the stubble along his jaw was a little long. A little cut in his lip was healing to a scar. Foggy was right about his eyebrows. He was looking at himself. He was seeing himself as an adult for the first time. It was bizarre, and wonderful. And then it was over.

Pax was moving away, and Matt jerked his hands back, and then his head was empty. Matt's internal clock told him that the whole experience took less than three seconds.

"What was that?" Matt gasped. He flexed his hands experimentally. Free of Pax's thoughts, his mind felt unusually quiet (which was a first).

Pax was trembling all over and her heart was racing. She jumped to her feet and backed away.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She mumbled, putting her hands to her temples and shaking her head. "I don't know. I'm sorry."

"Pax, it's okay. It's okay." Matt insisted. He stood and reached a hand towards her.

"That has never happened before," Pax said, making an effort to squash down her shock to speak more clearly. "You- my thoughts, you were- It's like I was inside you. Matt, your senses! The chaos and noise of it..."

Mat gave her a rueful smile, then pressed his lips into a thin line.

"That bad, huh?" He joked. And then, in a tone that Pax wasn't sure how to interpret, "I saw what you were seeing. I _saw._ I saw myself for, well. For the first time since I was a kid." He sat back down, and Pax did too, taking a light perch on the edge of her seat so that she could escape if she needed to.

"That was... your telepathy?" Matt asked uncertainly.

"Yes," Pax said, quickly adding, "But I wasn't trying to do that. The connection, it just- I don't know why it happened. It was like..." _Like something inside of me was being called to something inside of you,_ Pax thought, _like iron fillings to a magnet, and like the connection was too strong, like I couldn't have stopped it if I wanted to._

"Like you were being pulled towards something, and it was too strong to resist?" Matt offered.

"Yes," Pax admitted, and she got to her feet. She felt trapped. She had to get away. "I'm going to make something to eat."

She escaped to the kitchen to lose herself in the mundane acts of cracking eggs and cutting bread. Matt sat still in the living room for a long time, thinking.

* * *

The next morning, when Matt was gathering up his wallet, keys, and phone and preparing to leave. Pax was leaning against the wall by his front door, her arms crossed and her body language closed and thoughtful.

"Are you going to walk me to work?" Matt asked of her as he pulled on his suit jacket, his tone practiced and casual. The waking hours since the mind melding incident had been fraught with tense silences between them. Pax didn't like it. She suspected that Matt didn't either, but couldn't be sure, since she was now putting all her effort into keeping a barrier around her mind.

"I thought we could take the long way, past the church and the park. I mean, if you want to. I thought that maybe," Pax swallowed here, carefully maintaining her cool. Matt was rapidly losing his, though, as he realized what she was suggesting a split second before she said it aloud. "I thought that maybe I could show you what it looks like."

Matt's heart was hammering as he took his cane in his hands.

"I'd like that very much."

* * *

Later that morning Matt and Pax were sitting on the bench in front of the little stone church with the red door. Matt's watch beeped to signal the hour, which pulled him out of his people-watching and reminded him that he had a job to go to, and that he should be there. Pax pulled her hand away from Matthew's to end the connection.

It took a minute of adjustment to get balanced again, only seeing the world through her eyes after having all of Matt's echoing thoughts and sensory experience in her head. There was so much information all at once, so she still couldn't pick out much more than surface thoughts while they were connected, but she was getting the hang of tuning into his senses. And he was getting the hang of seeing.

"I guess we lost track of time," Matt admitted.

"There's so much to hear, to smell. The bakery a block away!" Pax said.

"Just a couple more minutes." Matt suggested, his voice hushed and intimate. Like they had a secret. Which, Pax supposed, they did.

"You're going to have to bring Foggy a coffee to make up for being so late. You two have those boxes of files to go through today." Pax said, but she was already convinced. She liked seeing Matt happy.

Pax laid her hand on the bench, so that her hand and Matt's just touched, and opened the connection. It got less overwhelming every time, and the picture Matt's senses formed made a little more sense.

 _Blue. I had forgotten, really, what blue was like,_ Matt thought.

Pax tilted her head and looked up, past tree branches just beginning to bud, into the hazy blue sky scattered with clouds. Matt's sheer happiness was a halo of light around them.

* * *

Three things to note. 1. The psychic link between Pax and Matt is not meant to be a disability fix, or a "cure" for Matt's blindness. Matt is still blind, he is still disabled, and we love him that way. The connection (and the risks and downsides and limitations) will be explored more in the future.

2\. This chapter got really long, so I cut out Pax's visit with Claire and included it in the collection (of one shots in the _justitia, veritas, pax_ universe) that I have going. You can find that collection on my profile.

3\. I'm now caught up on what I had posted over on AO3. I anticipate updating within the next few days. Please do let me know what you think- comments are my life blood and so appreciated.


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